The Midas of Manumission

Samuel Gist was born in Bristol in the early eighteenth century but was soon orphaned and sent to Virginia as an apprenticed. Despite this unpromising start, he returned to Britain already a successful merchant, a tobacco trader and owned ships and slaves; when he returned to Britain he thrived as insurance broker. When he died in 1815 he left legacies to many charities, but also funded the freedom of his Virginian slaves, which became one of the greatest manumissions. Gist is an enigmatic chara