The "Deed of Gift" - How Robert Carter III Freed Over 500 Slaves on 5 September 1791

Chip Delano provided the below information (and the reference to the CNN story behind it) for your reading enjoyment. 

Attached below is a link to an interesting article about Robert Carter, III and Nomini Hall of the Northern Neck of Virginia. We thought that the members of the  Delano Kindred might enjoy reading this article since  our cousins, Frank Delano and his daughter Meriwether Gilmore, are prominently featured. 

Here is a "teaser" from the CNN story, followed by a link to the full CNN article.

Like Washington and Jefferson, he championed liberty.

Unlike the founders, he freed his slaves.

Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated 4:01 AM ET, Sun September 5, 2021

(CNN) - It was 230 years ago Sunday that Robert Carter III, the patriarch of one of the wealthiest families in Virginia, quietly walked into a Northumberland County courthouse and delivered an airtight legal document announcing his intention to free, or manumit, more than 500 slaves.

He titled it the "deed of gift." It was, by far, experts say, the largest liberation of Black people before President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act and Emancipation Proclamation more than seven decades later.

To read the full CNN article, click here.