Live Performance! Frances Tasker Carter: Colonial Aristocracy
A Great Emancipator Rises From A Family of Slave Traders

Written & Performed By Darci Tucker

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
Frances Tasker Carter was from one of the most prominent families in Annapolis. Her brother was a slave trader, and she married Robert Carter III, one of the largest slaveowners in Virginia. Together they grappled with the issue of slavery, and they eventually emancipated between 500 and 600 enslaved people. This was probably the largest emancipation by an individual in the US before the Civil War. Hear this story from the perspective of one caught in the controversy. Francis shares her storied youth, her courtship and married life and the stories of her family’s life before and after the Revolutionary War.

ABOUT FRANCIS TASKER CARTER
Francis Tasker Carter was the daughter, brother and wife of men involved in the enslavement of other people. She was the daughter of Benjamin Tasker, who was president of the Council of Maryland. On April 2, 1754, she married Robert Carter III, who owned several hundred slaves and more than 65,000 acres of land. They had 17 children, all four sons but onlyeight daughters survived until adulthood. Her husband was involved inthis country claiming independence from England. After the war the her husband struggled with the high ideals written into our founding documents, and eventually freed all of their slaves… well that was their eventual goal, but her son fought for his inheritance in the courts.