Philip Ludwell III as a young man

Philip Ludwell III is the first known convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Americas. He was a prominent figure in pre-revolutionary Virginia and a relative by blood or marriage of many great early figures in American history from George Washington to Richard Henry Lee of the great Lee family of Virginia. The scion of one of the largest landholding and politically prominent families in early Virginia, he was born at Green Spring near Williamsburg on December 28, 1716, making him a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, with whom he shared a friendship.

In 1738 he travelled from Virginia to London, where at the end of that year he was received into the Orthodox Church. Returning to Virginia in 1740 he served as  a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and in 1752 he became a member of the Royal Governor’s Council , serving in that capacity until his death in 1767. As a member of the Council he was instrumental in obtaining a commission for a young George Washington as Colonel (commanding officer) of the Virginia Regiment in 1755.

In Virginia he secretly practiced his Orthodox faith, which at that time was treasonable. At some point in the 1750s he embarked upon an English translation of the “Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church”, composed in 1640 by the Orthodox Bishop Metropolitan Peter Mogila of Kiev and that of various Orthodox liturgical texts. In 1760 he moved with his three daughters to London where they were received into the Orthodox Church on Holy Wednesday, 1762. In the same year, with the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Russia, Ludwell’s translation of Mogila’s catechism was published in a cloth edition.

An Unpalatable Reality

Philip Ludwell III inherited his family’s plantations during the time that the transatlantic slave trade reached its zenith in colonial Virginia. To be precise, between 1680 and 1700, six thousand enslaved Africans were transported to Virginia, increasing to fifty-five thousand from 1700 – 1740 and then falling to twenty-three thousand in the next thirty years.[1]

There is equally no disputing that Philip Ludwell III owned[2] a substantial number of slaves, as did the other leading Virginian families of his generation. Drawing from the probate inventory of his 1767 will, Ludwell had a total of 235 slaves spread across the nine quarters and plantations that he owned, including Rich Neck, Hot Water, Archer’s Hope, New Quarter, Pine Meadow, Scotland, Mill Quarter, Cloverton, and Green Spring. The largest number of these, seventy-seven in total, were at his principal residence of Green Spring Plantation. Based on tax figures from the 1780’s (that are considered to not have changed significantly from Ludwell’s time) this would place him somewhere in the middle of the twenty-eight-member planter aristocracy in terms of size of slave holding.[3] Ludwell’s slave holdings were far from being the largest of his time: By contrast, in 1761, William Byrd III (1728-1777) put up for sale some five hundred slaves to raise funds to pay his gambling debt.[4]

Slavery and the Law in Colonial Virginia

The law addressed the question of slavery in two aspects: Regulations regarding the buying and selling of slaves (the slave trade) and rules regarding their treatment and manumission.[5] The slave trade did not become illegal in the British Empire until 1807, forty years after the death of Philip Ludwell III. The United States enacted a similar ban at the same time that came into effect in 1808. This abolition was a colossal victory that ended an enormous evil: Between 1662 and 1807 British and British colonial ships purchased and transported an estimated 3,415,500 Africans, of whom some 2,964,800 survived the survived the journey only to be sold into slavery in the Americas.[6] The sugar plantations of the British Caribbean islands were far and away the main recipients of these enslaved Africans (almost four times as many as British North America[7]) as living conditions in Virginia and the colonies of North America were relatively speaking much less harsh and the enslaved population more capable of sustaining itself.

Laws regarding the ownership and manumission of slaves in Virginia evolved over time: As the numbers of slaves began to surpass that of indentured servants during the seventeenth century a law was passed by the General Assembly in 1691: It allowed for owners to manumise their slaves, but only on the condition that the newly freed slaves left the colony within six months and that all expenses of their migration were covered by their former owners. This law was replaced in 1723 by an even more restrictive one: Owners could only manumit their slaves in return for “meritorious service” as judged by the Governor and the Council. If the appropriate license was not obtained in advance the freed slave was subject to recapture and sale to a new owner. In the fifty-nine years this law remained in force less than twenty-five slaves were legally freed. Finally these provisions were replaced in 1782 and it then became possible for owners to free their slaves at will, subject to providing for the welfare of any of those aged forty-five or older.[8]

Philip Ludwell III: Attitudes and Actions Towards Slavery

In a recent article Philip Ludwell is described as “being a profuse writer on a variety of topics” and then duly castigated as he is said to have “never penned anything resembling a denunciation of slavery…”[9] This is a deeply puzzling accusation as in my fifteen years of studying Philip Ludwell III I have uncovered almost no writings by him whatsoever, other than his one-page preface to his translation of an Orthodox catechism, a tiny number of letters and some short inscriptions in books. None of these extant materials seem to me in any way sufficient to form a view of Ludwell’s own attitudes towards slavery. To attempt to do this we can at best look at the views expressed by members of his wider family and circle of friends, as well as Ludwell’s and these relatives and associates own actions.

Whilst we have very little written by Ludwell, we do have access to materials that were translated by him, principally the three most commonly celebrated Orthodox liturgies and the catechism previously referred to. There are also so other ancillary materials such as an aid to confession. This demonstrates that Ludwell was at least cognizant of his Christian duty to be “carefull for those under my charge in daly providing for their souls and Bodys”[10]. I think it is reasonable to assume that he would have seen the slaves on his plantation as amongst those under his charge, together with his own family and hired servants.

Slavery as a part of human life was not of course new to the British American colonies. As the historian Jean Mango tells us:

Slavery has a long and brutal history. It probably began amongst the first civilizations of the Near East. Their earliest surviving law codes refer to slaves. Slaves were often human booty: captured foreigners or prisoners of war. Many a slave was born in captivity though. The child of a slave was a slave. The Roman and Greek empires ran on slavery.[11]

So chattel slavery not only existed but was widespread throughout the Roman world in which the Son of God became incarnate and in which the Church was birthed at the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. So how did the Apostles react to this reality and is it not most likely that Ludwell’s attitudes would have been formed by these ancient Christian understandings? In particular he would have read the writings of St Paul found in the New Testament, such as in the epistle to Philemon, that St Paul himself wrote whilst in captivity. Philemon is a Christian slave owner and one of his slaves, named Onesimus, has become a Christian whilst visiting St. Paul. The Apostle writes to Philemon requesting that he receive Onesimus back “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.” (Philemon v 16) This echoes St Paul’s words found in Galatians 3:28 that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The transformation that the putting on of Christ brings can change us beyond the limitations and specificities of our earthly paradigms in a way that no human political action can ever achieve.

St Paul also condemns the actions of a slave trader (or slave taker) in a list of immoral persons found in 1 Timothy 1:10 (NIV) whose actions he describes as being “contrary to the sound doctrine.” The Greek word translated here as slave trader is sometimes also rendered as “kidnaper.” But the Greek word is andrapodistés that is derived from andrapodon or slave. Whilst St Paul condemns as sinful the trade in slaves he does not advocate for the abolition of the institution. He instead advocates for its transformation through the embrace of the gospel and new life in Christ. This is because he understands that we are all enslaved to sins and that it is freedom from this interior slavery that matters the most. Thus, we find in I Timothy 6:2 St Paul’s advice that:

Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.

And in Galatians 5:1:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

This Pauline mindset is in some measure similar to how David Hackett Fischer explains the original Virginian understanding of liberty:

The largest possibility in this idea of hegemonic liberty lay in its conception of dominion over self. A gentleman of Virginia was trained to be, like Addison’s Cato, ‘severely bent against himself.’ He was taught to believe that a truly free man must be the master of his acts and thoughts. At the same time a gentleman was expected to be the servant of his duty… So exalted was this ideal of hegemony over self that every gentleman fell short. But the ideal itself was pursued for many generations.[12]

The Slave Trade

As a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses Ludwell can be seen acting from a young age to promote laws that would have been deleterious to the slave trade: in 1744 he introduced a motion into the House of Burgesses to raise the import duty on slaves by five percent.[13] His motion failed (as did a similar one four years later). A successful motion would have acted to reduce the trade in slaves, but whether this was motivated in whole or part by a moral imperative is uncertain.

Similar motions had been introduced to the Virginia Assembly as far back as 1710. Between 1699 and 1730 there was a small duty to be paid on both slaves and indentured servants and the liability for this fell on the importer rather than the buyer. As previously mentioned, in comparison to the Caribbean islands, Virginia imported far fewer slaves from Africa. So when the Virginia burgesses moved to increase these import duties, they were not only seeking to dampen the transatlantic slave trade but also to raise revenue for the colony at the expense of the Royal Africa Company (RAC) who were the main British actors in advancing the trade. The Virginia planters were also concerned that a rapid increase in the slave population could fuel a too rapid increase in tobacco production that would in turn depress prices for their crops. Finally, an increase in the slave population was seen as facilitating the likelihood of slave uprisings.

The Virginia Lt. Governor in 1710, Alexander Spotswood (1676-1740), whose job was to advance the interests of the British crown, (that were consonant with those of the RAC), opposed these attempts to increase the import duties. Despite his opposition the increase in duties was enacted and further extended in 1712. This provision expired in 1718 and the Burgesses sought to renew it in 1723. But the RAC and others lobbied King George I (1660-1727) who had the law repealed. Finally in 1732 a compromise was reached whereby the obligation to pay the duty was passed to the buyer. Consequently, when Philip Ludwell III and others argued for its increase, they were more strongly acting against their own economic self-interest than had earlier generations.

Further evidence that Ludwell’s position was motivated by distaste of the slave trade comes from a March 1757 letter written by the Rev. Peter Fontaine (1691-1757) of Westover Parish in Charles City County (some thirty miles up the James River from Ludwell’s home at Green Spring) to his brother Moses. Fontaine states that the Virginia’s burgesses were conscious of “the ill consequences” of importing so many slaves and “hath often attempted to lay a duty upon them which would amount to a prohibition … but no Governor dare pass such a law, having instructions to the contrary from the Board of Trade.”

Fontaine also articulates a clear distaste for slavery writing that it is the “original sin and curse of the country of purchasing slaves”. But ultimately, he justifies the institution as a necessary evil in the light of continuing shortages in manual laborers.[14]

It seems most likely that during his twenty years in Virginia from 1740-1760 Philip Ludwell III would have held to similar views as the Rev Fontaine: Slavery was an evil, but an unavoidable economic necessity. Simply liberating all his slaves was neither legally nor economically possible for him at that time. So, Ludwell advanced such measures as were politically possible to curtail the slave trade, and kept his own slaves in decent conditions, with adequate food and clothing.

Archaeological site at Ludwell’s Green Spring Plantation

How Did Ludwell Treat Slaves?

We have seen that the Gospel mandated a transformation of the relationship between slave and master to that of familial equality in Christ, and in particular that masters should be “devoted to the welfare of their slaves.” So what is known of the life of a slave on a Ludwell plantation?

As mentioned earlier, the largest single group of Ludwell plantation slaves were at Green Spring: seventy-seven at the time of his death in 1767.By contrast, Rich Neck had twenty-one slaves: ten men, five women, three boys and three girls.[15]

At Green Spring the largest number of slaves were engaged in planting and harvesting crops. Tobacco was the mainstay of the Virginia plantations as the principal cash export, along with increasing amounts of wheat, as planters sought to diversify their economic base. Rye, corn, and barley were also grown, and cattle and livestock raised, to meet the goal of internal self-sufficiency in food and other material necessities for daily life on the plantations. Green Spring also had orchards where fruit was grown. In addition to agricultural workers and domestic servants, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and clothiers were present amongst the enslaved population. A detailed archaeological study of the Rich Neck plantation indicates that the diet of these slaves was diverse, made up of both cultivated crops and reared meats, supplemented by naturally harvested nuts and berries, together with hunted animals such as wild turkey.[16] It was, of course, in their owner’s interest, to keep the enslaved population fit and healthy.

The study of Rich Neck also found other, perhaps surprising, indications of a good material standard of living there for the enslaved population, during the lifetime of Philip Ludwell III: They possessed objects such as “stemmed table glass, Chinese porcelain plates painted under the glaze, a delftware punch pot, and the refined accoutrements of the ‘tea ceremony.’ ”[17] There is uncertainty as to how such items were acquired by the slaves. They may have been hand me downs from the Ludwells, but might also have been purchased, bartered for, or stolen. It is also doubtful that such luxury items were widely owned by slaves: the inventory of Philip Ludwell III’s 1767 will rather suggests that his slaves were only provided with the necessities required for growing and preparing food, such as an iron pot, grindstone, hoe’s etc.[18]

The diversity of work performed by Philip Ludwell III’s slaves may come as a surprise to many of us today: The documents of the 1770 division of his estate between his two surviving daughters tell us that:

At Green Spring were Billy, Mat, Jack and Mercury, who were carpenters, and Jacob who was a sawyer. Scipio, Will, and a boy named Paul were wheelwrights. Anthony was employed as a blacksmith. There were several gardeners: Sam, Marcus, and John Ralph, who also was a ditcher (ditch-digger). Cupid and Godfrey were shoemakers and Guy was a hostler, or stableman. Tommy was a footman. The rest of Philip Ludwell III’s male slaves at Green Spring (both men and boys) and some of the females (some of the women and all of the girls) were classified as “planters” or field hands. The adult female slaves with specialized skills included Daphne (the cook), Sarah and Fay (dairy maids), Mary, Nanny and Winny (who spun and sewed),Sukey and Margery (housemaids), and Fay (a midwife)… Virtually all of the slaves at Scotland, Cloverton, and Pinewood Meadow, who were under the supervision of overseer Edmund Saunders, were planters. Likewise, all of the slaves on the Hot Water tract, who were under the care of overseer Richard Branch, were classified as planters.[19]

We also learn from these documents that some of the Ludwell slaves had severe physical handicaps:

At Green Spring was Winny, a spinner and seamstress, who was lame. At Pinewood Meadow was Harry, a planter, who was blind. Despite his handicap, he was the most valuable planter on the property. Also at Pinewood Meadow was Phillis, who reportedly “got no fingers or toes.” Despite her disability (perhaps a result of the dismemberment or maiming to which habitual runaways were subjected) she was a highly valued planter.[20]

In the same way as it was in the plantation owner’s best interest to make sure their slaves were adequately fed and clothed, so it was with housing: The Rev Hugh Jones in his Present State of Virginia written in 1724 tells us that:

The Negroes live in small cottages called quarters, in about six in a gang, under the direction of an overseer or bailiff; who takes care that they tend such land as the owner allots and orders, upon which they raise hogs and cattle, and plant Indian corn (or maize) and tobacco for the use of their master; out of which the overseer has a dividend (or share) in proportion to the number of hands including himself; this with several privileges is his salary and is an ample recompense for his pains, and encouragement of his industrious care, as to the labour, health and provision of the Negroes

and also, that:

The Negroes are very numerous, some gentlemen having hundreds of them of all sorts, to whom they bring great profit; for the sake of which they are obliged to keep them well, and not overwork, starve, or famish them, besides other inducements to favour them; which is done in a great degree, to such especially that are laborious, careful, and honest; though indeed some masters, careless of their own interest or reputation, are too cruel or negligent[21]

These slave cottages would also have been the one place where they could socialize, share food, and develop their own customs and traditions with relative freedom from their owner’s oversight. Archaeological evidence suggests they existed at Green Spring plantation alongside tenant housing.

David Hackett Fischer highlights the place given to Christian Feast Days in the social life of enslaved people:

Slaves were allowed special feast days after Easter and Christmas. Easter Monday was a day of wild celebration in black communities, a custom that continued for two centuries, even into the Chesapeake childhood of this historian. These customs of feasting had long been traditional in the south and west of England, even among families of modest means. On harvest homes and holy days, the usual fare of bread, soup, lard and garden greens yielded to ‘boiled beef, bacon, puddings, apple pie, hot cakes and ale’ even in laborers’ cottages.[22]

During Philip Ludwell III’s lifetime even the small, relative liberties such quarters offered were challenged: In 1754 the Virginia Assembly mandated that monthly patrollers must “visit all slave quarters and other places suspected of entertaining unlawful assemblies of slaves, servants, or other disorderly persons.” These patrollers were also empowered to take into custody any slave or servant they found out and about who was not carrying the requisite authority in the form of a pass.[23]

We can see from newspaper advertisements that Ludwell did seek the return of escaped slaves. However, there are surprisingly few of these, given that such advertisements were posted by landowners from 1736 when the Virginia Gazette was first published in Williamsburg. Ludwell’s first such advertisement does not appear until the Virginia Gazette of January 30, 1752, and is dated five days earlier:

Ran away, Yesterday Morning, from the Subscriber, a Negroe Man, named Anthony; he is a tall slim young Fellow, hollow Eye’d, with a large Scar of a Burn on one of his Wrists: He carried with him al his Cloaths, and ‘tis suppos’d will endeavour to make his Escape out of the Colony. Whoever takes up the said Runaway, and puts him into the Constables Hands, to be conveyed to me, as the Law directs, may depend on being well rewarded, according to their Trouble.

The law that Ludwell is referring to here is presumably that passed in October 1705 entitled “An act concerning Servants and Slaves.” Amongst other things it allowed for payment of a reward to those who captured runaways and permitted runaways to be punished by their masters with physical chastisement. This was intended to be of a nonlethal nature but should the returned slave “happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted felony.”[24] This Act was, however, recodified in October 1748[25] with the same title and does not include this last cited provision, but allows for a maximum punishment of up to thirty-nine lashes if sanctioned by a Justice of the Peace. The same punishment could also be applied to a runaway servant. But as we shall see, Ludwell inclined to leniency.

In the same issue of the Virginia Gazette Philip Ludwell III posted another advertisement of a different kind that indirectly speaks to the good character of one of his young slaves:

Jan. 30, 1752

Found on the Williamsburg Road, last week, by one of the Subscriber’s Negroe Boys, a Green Cloth Housing, with a Silver Flower in each Flap. The Owner may have it, at my House, on paying the Charge of this Advertisement.

This young slave is shown both to be honest and able to walk seemingly unaccompanied away from the plantation.

From the story of a Ludwell slave who ran away more than once we can see that his punishment (at least following his first escape and recapture) could not have been too severe as the interval between his two escapes was at most a little over three months: The November 30, 1759, issue of the Virginia Gazette has this advertisement:

My Negro Man Slave, named Anthony, ran away from Green-spring yesterday; he had on a blue Cotton Jacket and Breeches, and a fine whited Linen Shirt; he is a tall Fellow, remarkably hollow-eyed, has on one Wrist a large Scar of a Burn, and his left hand is ? withered, and the Fingers contracted, by having cut himself across the inside of his Wrist ,some Time ago. Whoever brings him to me, shall have a reward of ? Pistoles.

and then again on March 18, 1760:

Ran away, last Night, from the Subscriber, a Negroe man named Anthony; he is a tall slim young fellow, hollow-eye’d, and has a large Scar of a burn on one of his wrists; he is very subtil, and frequently changes his Name when run away, and is suppos’d to be concern’d in a Robbery, committed in the Neighbourhood a few Nights ago, which is thought to be the Cause of his running away, as no other appears yet: Together with him went, I suppose for the same reason, another Fellow, named Matt Cooper, who is a squat well-set young Fellow, and has a Scar of a Boil on one of his Cheeks, just below the under Jaw-bone. Whoever takes up the said Runaways, or either, and conveys them to me, according to Law, shall be generously rewarded.

The leniency that Philip Ludwell III seems to have shown Anthony is even more remarkable when placed in the context of a law passed eleven years in 1748 that made illegal for slave owners to dismember slaves “going abroad at night or running away and staying out” (Provided that punishment had not already been metered out prior to their return.). Another new law passed at this time stated that slaveholders must provide written authorization for their slaves before they could be absent from their home plantation.[26] Presumably Ludwell had issued such a pass to the young boy who found the green cloth on the road.

Another incident that is indicative of Philip Ludwell III’s inclination to leniency also occurred in 1759. Two of Ludwell’s adult male slaves were summoned before the justices on May 9, accused of breaking in and stealing two bags of meal from the late Daniel Parke II’s mill house: George pleaded not guilty but Jemmy the opposite. Witnesses were summoned and heard in George’s case and despite his plea he was found guilty. Both men were sentenced to be hanged but instead received pardons before this sentence was carried out.[27]

So, the evidence that is available to us points to Ludwell treating the slaves on his plantations well and not exercising the kind of harsh punishments the laws of his time would have allowed. The relatively few recorded incidents of runaways also support this picture. What we cannot speak too with certainty is whether Ludwell’s primary motivation in this regard was his Christian convictions or simply enlightened self-interest. Before turning to the question of what the testimony of Ludwell’s relatives may suggest of his own views, there is one more question to examine: did the slaves on Ludwell’s plantations in any way share in his spiritual life?

Christian Worship on the Plantation

The Ludwell’s were members of the Colonial Virginia landed gentry who were expected to belong to the Church of England. But local clergy were scarce and the bishop to whom they were answerable was in distant London. So in a manner akin to a captain of a ship it was not unusual for a plantation owner in pre-revolutionary Virginia to take responsibility for leading lay services on the plantation. This would consist primarily of reading aloud the set service texts from the Book of Common Prayer.[28] Edward Bond explains that:

When pressed, most [Anglican] authorities found truth in antiquity and simply referred to the decisions of the first four ecumenical councils held at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon as the basis of Church doctrine.

Following on from this he goes on to stress the importance of the Book of Common Prayer that provided a basis for uniting Anglicans of diverse theological perspectives as

…a book of worship, it implied in its title the importance of shared devotions to God rather than common belief.”[29]

Later in the same work Bond returns to the importance of shared devotion in colonial Virginia writing that:

The devotional life played an important part in shaping a holy life, and Virginians did not restrict their spiritual regimen to the public liturgy and the sacred space of the parish church….Unlike English divines who treated private devotions a form of preparation for the Church’s public worship, ministers in Virginia reversed this sequence, placing greater emphasis on private devotions than on public and communal prayer.[30]

And further that:

Family prayers too formed part of the Anglican spiritual regimen. Virginia’s ministers promoted this exercise, as did the English clergy, especially for those people who were unable to attend public worship regularly.[31]

As a plantation owner who lived some miles from the nearest Anglican parish church[32] it would not have in any way been remarkable if Philip Ludwell III had led prayers for his family, slaves, and servants at Greenspring, using written texts available to him.

Not only could he have been understood to be following local Anglican tradition in doing this at that time but also as following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps. We know that the first Philip Ludwell kept a very well used “poor little old [prayer] book” for his own private devotions and that he wrote to his son Philip Ludwell II on Dec 20, 1707, that “for family devotions one cannot have a better choice than of the Church prayers.”[33]

The historian Olga Tsapina, writing about Philip Ludwell III, acknowledges the plausibility of his leading public prayers with all the inhabitants of the plantation, but raises doubts as to whether slaves would have been included in this:

There was nothing unusual about a planter’s family living five miles away from their parish church who preferred to worship at home, guided by the head of the household. (This, of course, prompts a question on the role that the Orthodox Ludwell played in the religious education of his many slaves, which was among the most important duties of a pious colonial gentleman. It seems highly unlikely that he had proselytized among his slaves. Given the extent of slaves’ correspondence networks, it would be very difficult to keep his conversion secret.)[34]

I think there are reasons to doubt this conclusion and evidence that may point in a different direction. Much would depend on the familiarity of the slaves with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and whether they would be able to recognize that what Ludwell was reading were Orthodox rather than Anglican texts. These would be even more difficult to distinguish if Ludwell also read from works of recognized Anglican figures such as the Rev James Blair whose books we know he used in his daughter Hannah’s instruction. Additionally, no evidence had been found to date at Green Spring or elsewhere of more obviously Orthodox artefacts, most particularly painted icons. These were relatively scarce even in the Orthodox parish in London at that time and so outwardly the setting for prayer on a Ludwell plantation may have seemed little different from what was typical elsewhere.

The question of whether some or all of Ludwell’s slaves were baptized must also be considered, and if so in what form. The register (1662-1792) of Bruton parish church in Williamsburg sadly has more than half of its pages missing. Whatever pages of the books that survived after the American Civil War (1860-1865) were put together and bound as the one book that we now have. The records incorporate those of the previously two parishes that were merged to create Bruton when Williamsburg was founded in 1699. The reconstituted register includes a distinct section for the Births and Baptisms of Slaves that is thankfully complete from April 5, 1747, until 1752, an almost five-year period when Philip Ludwell III was living and managing Green Spring and his other estates. During this period there are no records of any of Ludwell’s slaves being baptized at Bruton, as there are for other landowning contemporaries of his such as Carter Burwell (1716-1756) who owned less than one hundred slaves[35], substantially fewer than Ludwell. Whilst it is dangerous to make an argument from silence, could this point to Ludwell baptizing his own slaves? This would be entirely permissible within the Orthodox tradition in the absence of a priest. Other evidence may also point in this direction.

Philip Ludwell III would not have been the only religious dissenter in Virginia by the 1740’s. Other groups were also springing up, including Baptists. Regarding these Rhys Isaac writes:

The popular style and appeal of the Baptist church found its most powerful and visible expression in the richness of its rituals, again a total contrast to the prayer book reading of the colonial Church of England, where even congregational singing appears to have been rare.[36]

Isaac also notes that “Many slaves came or were sent to the religious observances of their masters.”[37] When we examine Philip Ludwell’s III’s Commonplace Book of Prayers his piety seems to have been of a very direct and personal nature, an aspect that Baptists would have shared. The repetition of sung texts would also be a common point of their ritual. One of the earliest Baptist churches in Virginia was Nomini Baptist, formally founded on April 29, 1786, but meeting as a home-based gathering from an early date.[38] Amongst its founding members were Hannah Ludwell Lee, niece of Philip Ludwell III and Robert Carter III (1727-1804), who owned a Greek prayer book and New Testament.[39]

The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg was formed a decade earlier than Nomini, in 1776. It is one of several churches that can lay claim to the title of first African American church in the USA. Regarding their own history Williamsburg First Baptist tells us that:

The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg was organized in 1776, with a quest by a group of courageous slaves and free blacks who wanted to worship God in their own way.

First led by Rev. Moses, a free black itinerant preacher, they built a brush arbor at Green Spring Plantation,[emphasis mine] a few miles from town, to gather secretly in song and prayer.[40]

Brush arbor is a kind of clearing in the woods with posts secured in the ground around the cleared area and across the top. Open spaces around the sides and top were filled with small limbs and branches to hide the gathering from view and shelter worshippers from the elements.[41]

By the time this activity in the woods at Green Spring is said to have begun Philip Ludwell III had been gone from the Plantation for over ten years and it was owned by his son-in-law William Lee. In 1776 Lee was in Europe and the plantation was being managed by a manager, Mr. Ellis. Lee wrote to him from Vienna on June 24, 1778:

I can’t too much recommend to you (tho’ I hope there is no occasion for it,) to take all possible care of the people. The women with child should never be hard worked or oppressed in any manner, and the children should always be plentifully fed and have necessary clothing. I wish them all to be treated as human beings whom Heaven has placed under my care not only to minister to my luxury, but to contribute to their happiness. In return for which I have a right to expect their faithful, honest and diligent service.[42]

If Lee’s directive was adhered to then it would have been much easier for the slaves on the plantation to gather independently for Christian worship and it is paradoxical to consider that the formation of one of the USA’s oldest African American churches owes its deepest origins to the participation of black slaves in lay led Eastern Orthodox worship from the 1740’s onward.

Succeeding Generations and Slavery

The quotation above from William Lee gives a taste of his attitude to slavery. A recently published Ph.D. paper suggests that Lee attitude was more beneficent than that of either Washington and Jefferson.[43]

Arthur Lee, nephew of Philip Ludwell III

Much more radical still were the views of William’s younger brother Arthur. In 1767 he penned the first fully fledged anti-slavery tract in American history, intriguingly using the pseudonym, “Philanthropos.” Lee wrote that slavery:

is a Violation both of justice and Religion; that it is dangerous to the safety of the Community in which it prevails; that it is destructive to the growth of arts and Sciences; and lastly, that it produces a numerous & very fatal train of Vices, both in the Slave, and in his Master.[44]

On March 28, 1767, less than two weeks after Arthur Lee’s piece was published in the Virginia Gazette, his cousin Henry Lee of Leesylvania introduced another bill to the House of Burgesses to further increase the duty on the importation of slaves into the colony, that had finally been raised to 5% in 1752.[45] These events seem to offer a clear link between a concern to abolish chattel slavery entirely (for which Arthur Lee also advanced economic arguments) and the relentless campaign to raise duty on the importation of slaves. These efforts were to culminate in a new Virginia law on slavery in 1782 that at last made possible the widespread manumission of slaves.

Arthur Lee’s anti-slavery tract was published in Virginia at the same time as his uncle Philip Ludwell III’s death in London. Earlier in the 1760’s Lee had been a medical student in Edinburgh from 1761-64, following his time at the renowned English public school of Eton, near London. During this period he was a frequent guest at his uncle’s home in London and in this regard his choice of the pseudonym, “Philanthropos,” for his anti-slavery writing is of particular interest as it is a Greek phrase familiar to those who know the Orthodox Divine Liturgy in the Greek original, being commonly rendered in English as “lover of man.” The word is used at the end of the dismissal said by the priest at the conclusion of the liturgy. Interestingly, Ludwell translates “philanthropos” simply as “mercyfull God” in the liturgy of St John Chrysostom and “according to his great mercy” in the liturgy of the Presanctified gifts. We can only conjecture to what extent the views that Lee expressed in his writing were those of his uncle, or reflected the mercy of God toward man, but further developments in the next generation on from Philip Ludwell III lend weight to this possibility.

Specifically I am referring to the action of Philip Ludwell III’s grandson, William Ludwell Lee (Arthur Lee’s nephew) who became the owner of the Green Spring plantation following the death of his father William Lee in 1795. William Ludwell Lee was twenty years old when he inherited the plantation but did not long outlive his father, dying in 1803. By the terms of his will he freed all the slaves he had held at Green Spring and provided them with land at the northern end of the plantation known in an area known as the Hot Water Tract. This settlement is now known as “Freedom Park.”[46] His will also mandated the funding of a school for the freed slaves, albeit this did not come to pass because of intervention from the College of William and Mary.[47] In any event William Ludwell Lee’s desire to provide schooling for the freed slaves is somewhat reminiscent of the much earlier involvement of Philip Ludwell III with Benjamin Franklin in establishing the short lived Bray school in Williamsburg in 1760 for the education of enslaved African Americans[48].

Conclusion

John Paradise, the Orthodox Christian son-in-law of Philip Ludwell III, was a close associate of the major English literary figure Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in the latter years of Johnson’s life. Regarding the inherent evil of slavery Dr Johnson is quoted as saying:

It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children. What is true of a criminal seems true likewise of a captive. …[49]

To what extent Philip Ludwell III would have shared Dr Johnson’s perspectives we cannot be certain, but both his actions and those of some of his immediate family point towards him doing so. More fundamentally I think Ludwell’s thought and actions were formed by the New Testament that (uncomfortable as it may be for many people today,) does not advocate for political action to reshape the structures of society but rather to reform the inner man in accordance with a citizenship that is to be found in an eternal kingdom that will endure beyond our temporal time. None of this obviates the need to feed the hungry, cloth the naked or free the captives, as commanded by Christ, and to the extent that this was possible in the society and times in which he lived Philip Ludwell III strived to do this.

Nicholas Chapman, Utica, New York, August 23, 2024

Endnotes

[1] An Archaeological Study of the Rich Neck Slave Quarter and Enslaved Domestic Life, Maria Franklin, Colonial Williamsburg Research Publications, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2004, p 25

[2] I will not avoid the word “owned” as this reflects the understanding of those times.

[3] http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR0121.xml

[4] https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/trend-tradition-magazine/spring-2022/the-world-of-the-williamsburg-bray-school/

[5] Manumission is the act of an owner in freeing a slave, whereas emancipation is the act of a government.

[6] https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-did-slave-trade-end-britain#:~:text=In%201806%2D07%2C%20with%20the,illegal%20from%201%20May%201807.

[7] 1,665000 as against 456,000. Rogoziński, Jan. 1994. A Brief History of the Caribbean : From the Arawak and the Carib to the Present. New York: Meridian. Table 16, p124

[8] The Business of Freeing a Slave in Virginia https://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/page/view/m0153

[9] Kelaidis, Katherine, 2024, Orthodox Christianity and American Slavery, https://publicorthodoxy.org/good-reads/orthodox-christianity-and-american-slavery/

[10] Ludwell’s Commonplace book includes this text in the preparation for confession.

[11] Ancestral Journeys : The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings. 2015 Revised and Updated paperback ed. London: Thames & Hudson. P. 198

[12] Fischer, David Hackett. 1989. Albion’s Seed. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press. P 416

[13] A Planters’ Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia. Footnote 21 on page 125.

[14] African Americans on Jamestown Island p108 and also Reverend Peter Fontaine’s Letter To His Brother Moses in Defense of Slavery in Virginia (1757) found at https://acfaucquez.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/reverend-peter-fontaine.pdf

[15] An Archaeological Study of the Rich Neck Slave Quarter and Enslaved Domestic Life, Maria Franklin, Colonial Williamsburg Research Publications, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2004, p 25

[16] Ibid, p 180-181

[17] Ibid, p 224

[18] African Americans on Jamestown Island p169

[19] Ibid, p158

[20] Ibid

[21] Ibid p 124

[22] David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed Four British Folkways in North America, New York, Oxford University Press, 1989 p354

[23] African Americans on Jamestown Island p129

[24] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/runaway-slaves-and-servants-in-colonial-virginia/

[25] www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/xslt/servlet/XSLTServlet?xsl=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/display_laws2.xsl&xml=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/laws.xml&lawid=1748-10-04#noten1748-04

[26] African Americans on Jamestown Island p115

[27] Ibid, p 130

[28] Isaac, Rhys, The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790, p63

[29] Bond, Edward L. Damned souls in a tobacco colony: religion in seventeenth-century Virginia, p141

[30] Ibid, p269

[31] Ibid, p 275

[32] The size of an average Virginia parish in 1724, discounting the five largest, was 270 sq. miles. Edward Bond, Private Piety in the Public Church, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, No 3, Summer 1996 P 1685

[33] Edward Bond, Private Piety in the Public Church, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, No 3, Summer 1996

[34] Tsapina, Olga A. , The Huntington Library,

The Strange Case of Philip Ludwell, III: Anglican Enlightenment and Eastern Orthodoxy in Colonial Virginia. Rough draft paper provided by the author.

[35] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/burwell-carter-1716-1756

[36] Isaac, Rhys, The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790, p166

[37] Ibid, p68

[38] www.nomini.org/history

[39] https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR1605.xml&highlight=

[40] https://firstbaptistchurch1776.org/index/history/

[41] Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Colonial National Historical Park Green Spring, 2003, p36

[42] https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092886153/cu31924092886153_djvu.txt

[43] https://cris.winchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/2494361/Stuart_McBratney_PhD.pdf

[44] https://libraries.wm.edu/blog/post/arthur-lee-philanthropos-and-18th-century-abolitionism

[45] MacMaster, Richard K. “Arthur Lee’s ‘Address on Slavery’: An Aspect of Virginia’s Struggle to End the Slave Trade, 1765-1774.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 80, no. 2 (1972): p143–144. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4247718.

[46] https://www.ludwell.org/freedom-park-williamsburg/

[47] McCartney, Martha (1997). James City County: Keystone of the Commonwealth. Virginia Beach: Donning Company. p. 490-491

[48] https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/associates-of-dr-bray/

[49] [49] http://www.samueljohnson.com/slavery.html#249. From Boswell’s Life of Johnson