Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation

by Isaac, Rhys

• ISBN13: 9780195189087
• ISBN10: 0195189086
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Landon Carter, a Virginia planter, left behind one of the most revealing of all American diaries. In this astonishingly rich, intimate history, Isaac mines this remarkable document-and many other sources-to reconstruct Carter's world as the American Revolution shook it to its roots. Carter writes at white heat, his words sputtering from his pen as he documents the terrible rupture that the Revolution meant to him. He rose against the "father King," George III, who betrayed his subjects, but Landon was outraged when his own household defied his patriarchal rule: his son showed insolent resentment, his daughter Judith eloped with a forbidden suitor, and eight of his slaves made an armed exodus to freedom. The seismic upheaval he helped to start had crumbled the foundations of Carter's own house.

Author Biography

Rhys Isaac is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the College of William and Mary and a Research Associate of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790.

Table of Contents

The Argument	xi
First Words	xiii
Dramatis Personae
The Carters and the Beales	xxiii
Sabine Hall---1770s Staff of the Dual Household	xxiv
Revolution in House and Home
Morning of Revolution	3	(14)
The Egypt of This Exodus	17	(20)
``All for Love''	37	(20)
Enlightenment Calm
Plantation Pastoral	57	(28)
Landon's Library	85	(20)
Plantation Medical Science	105	(18)
Politics, War, and Rebellion
Landon, Legislator	123	(40)
Rebellions Begin	163	(24)
A Troubled Old Regime
Master and Slaves	187	(46)
Duties Betrayed	233	(32)
Contests at Home	265	(22)
King Lear Into The Storm
Primal Rebellions	287	(26)
Landon and Nassaw	313	(10)
Toward Death	323	(10)
Last Words	333	(4)
Chronology	337	(2)
Annotation	339	(57)
About the Illustrations	396	(4)
Acknowledgments	400	(1)
Index	401