![]() Marshall’s will also contained a provision for Spurlock to choose an owner from among Marshall’s children. In his will, Marshall offered Robin Spurlock emancipation and $100 if he opted to relocate there, or $50 if he chose emancipation in the US. ![]() In 1823, Marshall became the first president of the Richmond branch of the American Colonization Society, which encouraged the voluntary return of free Africans to the West African colony of Liberia. At the time of his death, the enslaved population at these properties likely neared 200 individuals. Over the course of his adult life, Marshall acquired through purchase, inheritance, and birth enslaved Africans who labored at his properties in Richmond, and in the counties of Charles City, Fauquier, and Henrico. John Marshall received Robin Spurlock, an enslaved African close in age to his own, as a wedding gift from Marshall’s father. While he left behind little evidence that would allow contemporary historians to fully understand his personal views on slavery, the limited information below can help us understand how Marshall interacted with a society that relied on enslaved labor. John Marshall, like most of Virginia’s middle and upper classes at the turn of the 19 th century, inhabited a socio-economic structure built upon the institution of slavery. ![]()
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