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Primary sourceLetter18 January 1773

Letter from Patrick Henry to Robert Pleasants on Slavery

Patrick Henry · 18 January 1773

A 1773 letter in which Patrick Henry calls slavery abhorrent while admitting he owns slaves himself.

Henry wrote this letter himself, revealing the contradiction between his calls for liberty and his ownership of enslaved people.

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Source: Wikisource

About this source

What it is

This is a letter Patrick Henry wrote to Robert Pleasants, a Quaker, on January 18, 1773, after receiving a book against the slave trade. In it Henry criticizes slavery as inconsistent with Christianity and the ideals of liberty, while also acknowledging that he himself owned enslaved people.

Why it matters

The letter exposes a central contradiction in Henry's life: a man famous for demanding liberty who also profited from slavery. It shows how some slaveholders in this era recognized slavery's injustice in words but did not act to end their own participation in it, revealing the gap between Revolutionary ideals and lived practice.

Look closer

  • How does Henry describe slavery, and how does that compare with the fact that he owned slaves?
  • Why might Henry have continued owning slaves despite calling the practice abhorrent?
  • What does this letter reveal about the limits of Revolutionary-era talk of liberty?

This letter is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Patrick Henry on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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