visit_church_hill

“The most hated woman in Virginia”

05/10/2013 7:23 PM by

wtvr has a profile of Elizabeth Van Lew, calling her “the most hated woman in America”:

Elizabeth Van Lew is born in 1818 into a wealthy slave owning household. She was a woman of means living in the finest mansion on Church Hill, but the Quaker educated Van Lew comes to abhor the institution – of humans owning humans.

She secretly starts freeing her slaves following her father’s passing 20 years ‘before’ the Emancipation Proclamation. The decision sets the unmarried Van Lew on a crash course with her fellow Virginians.


TAGGED:

13 RESPONSES



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *