Robert Carter - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

A Man Named Robert: Lessons from the Life of America’s First Great Emancipator

By Scott J. Pearson | June 26, 2022June 26, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

This book attempts to accomplish two feats at once. First, it attempts to provide leadership lessons, and second, it tries to highlight the life history of Robert Carter III. (Ironically, the author and the biographical subject share the same last name. In this review, the author will be referred to as Dr. Carter while the subject, as just Carter.) Carter was a 18th-century Virginian planter who amassed great wealth around the time of the Revolutionary…

The First Emancipator: Slavery, Religion, & the Quiet Revolution of Robert Carter

By Scott J. Pearson | January 15, 2022January 15, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

For most of us, American history consists of well-attested narratives. Northerners were against slavery while Southerners were for it. General emancipation of slaves after the Revolution was impractical. The founding fathers were deist in their religious orientation. To these three national myths, the case of Virginian aristocrat Robert Carter stands in stark opposition. In the late eighteenth century, he freed around 500 of his own slaves, to the ire of his neighbors and without compensation,…