Author: Crawford, Charles
Biography:
CRAWFORD, Charles (b 1752: Leary)
He was born in Antigua, the second son of Alexander Crawford, a wealthy plantation owner. When his father died in 1772, Crawford was living in London with a guardian. An unruly and rebellious young man, he caned his guardian in public and was expelled from Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1773--the same year in which he published A Dissertation upon the Phaedon of Plato. By 1783, he was in Philadelphia, where he produced a stream of writings both in verse and prose, notably Observations upon Negro Slavery (1784). Besides attacking slavery, he also advocated an end to prostitution and argued, from a Christian perspective, for religious tolerance. About 1800 he returned to England, possibly to assist with the settling of his brother's estate. He began to claim the titles of Earl of Crawford and Lindsay and Viscount Garnock, though his claims were never argued in court and seem to have been without merit. Leary gives 1815 as the year of his death and others follow him, but that is incorrect, since he made a will in 1816 ("calling myself the Earl of Crawford and Lindsay") that was proved in 1825. He presumably died in 1824 or 1825. In 1824 he was registered as the owner of 141 enslaved people; his estate was recorded as still owning 127 in 1828. (ancestry.com 1 July 2025; findmypast.com 1 July 2025; LBS 1 July 2025; Lewis Leary, "Charles Crawford: A Forgotten Poet of Early Philadelphia," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 83 [July 1959] 293-306; John R. Shook, ed. Dictionary of Early American Philosophers [New York 2012] 247-9) HJ
Other Names:
- Charles, Earl of Crawford
- Charles Lindsay Crawford