Pleasants, Robert, 1723-1801

Robert Pleasants was a Quaker merchant, planter, and enslaver-turned-abolitionist who spent most of his life in Henrico County, Virginia. He is perhaps best known for successfully suing for the freedom of over 400 enslaved people as the plaintiff in Pleasants v. Pleasants, the largest manumission case in U.S. history.

Pleasants was born about 1723 to John Pleasants III and Margaret Jordan Pleasants, Quaker members of Virginia's planter aristocracy of enslavers, at their estate of Curles’ Neck in Henrico County, Virginia. In 1748 he married Mary Webster of Baltimore County, Maryland. Pleasants became a leader in the local Quaker community at a relatively young age; in 1749/50 he succeeded his father as clerk of Henrico Monthly Meeting, and in 1759 he was recommended for the position of elder.

Though born into a family of enslavers, Pleasants eventually came to support antislavery, likely through a connection with Philadelphia Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet. Before his father's death in 1771, Pleasants persuaded him to provide in his will for the manumission of the people he enslaved. Since existing Virginia law nullified the manumissions, Pleasants took a leading role in lobbying efforts that eventually led to the passage of Virginia's Manumission Act in 1782. He soon thereafter legally recognized the freedom of the people he had enslaved and hired them as paid laborers. Pleasants founded the Virginia Aboltion Society in 1790, and served as its president until his death in 1801. He also submitted a number of petitions to the state and national legislatures calling for the end of the slave trade.

In 1793, after Pleasants's relatives failed not comply with his father's last will in freeing the enslaved people it had placed under their charge, Pleasants brought them to court in Pleasants v. Pleasants. The case was eventually decided in his favor in 1800, establishing the legal freedom of over 400 people. Pleasants died the following year. In his will, he set aside land to endow a school for free Black children known as Gravelly Hill.