Three centuries ago, an enslaved person in Virginia wrote to a leader of the Church of England, begging to be released from “this cruel bondage.” There was no reply from the church, which at the time was accumulating a tidy profit from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The handwritten letter from 1723 — whose author says they must remain anonymous for fear they will “swing upon the gallows tree” if exposed — has gone on display in London as part of efforts by the Anglican church to reckon with its historic complicity in slavery.
