This collection explores Bushrod’s relationship with the institution of chattel slavery. As a Virginian planter and inheritor of the Mount Vernon estate, Bushrod was a slaveowner. He defended the slaveholder’s property rights because state and federal laws sanctioned them. Bushrod also helped found the American Colonization Society in 1816 and served as its first president. This contradiction opened Bushrod to criticism from contemporary abolitionists, and modern historians classify the effort to send freed slaves to Africa as stemming from an antislavery, as opposed to abolitionist, conviction.
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The Will should be proved at the first Fairfax Court, and this can be easily done by Mr Lewis's carrying it up and presenting it to the Court for probate, the whole of it being in the Testator's own hand writing and that well Kno… Continue Reading To Martha Washington, 27 Dec. 1799
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The improved Lot in Alexandria; the household furniture including (as I concieve in that description,) the pictures & plate; the kitchen furniture; the liquors, groceries & dead victuals laid in at the time of the Ge… Continue Reading To Martha Washington, 26 Jan. 1800
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I was about to sit down to give you an account of my autumnal Circuit, when I had the pleasure of receiving your late letter— Before I say one word on this subject, I beg to apologize for… Continue Reading From Joseph Story, 21 Dec. 1821