occupy reality Wrote:
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> You ignorant FUCK!!!
>
> Mason did NOT sign or support Constitution
> because he didn't think it went far enough to END
> slavery!!!
>
>
http://www.whatwouldthefoundersthink.com/george-ma
> son-the-framer-who-refused-to-sign-the-constitutio
> n
In the 1780s, nearly 100 enslaved men, women, and children lived and worked on the four nearby farms (or quarters as they were called) and the mansion house that comprised George Mason's holdings. Many were sons, daughters, grandsons, or granddaughters of about 32 slaves that Mason inherited in 1735. Other slaves came into Mason’s possession as wedding gifts (or dowry) when he married Ann Eilbeck in 1750 or as later gifts and bequests from her parents. George Mason possibly purchased some slaves. In 1753, eight children were “adjudged” for their ages — an indication that they were new arrivals into the colony. But the majority of the Gunston Hall slaves were born into slavery under colonial Virginia's carefully constructed legal code that was strictly enforced. One law stated that a child born to a slave woman was a slave for life. Another forbade masters from freeing their slaves. Thus slavery in Virginia was perpetuated by “natural increase.”
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Who were they?
George Mason's will included 36 enslaved individuals by name and referred to an additional ten women who were the mothers of some of these people. Many mother-child connections are revealed across a span of approximately 70 years in surviving documents. Fathers are not recorded and can only be surmised from naming patterns that have been suggested by historians. Some of George Mason's slaves identified in the surviving documents are described here.
Field slaves lived hard lives performing the daily work of a farm routine on the outlying quarters. Watt, who tended fields at Hallowing Point, ran away, but later returned to the quarter. It is doubtful that he came back of his own free will. Milly, also at Hallowing Point, had five children who worked the fields along side her, but one child was later taken from her to work on another quarter. Caja, possibly a field slave, remained with her four adult children and two grandchildren her entire life.
Domestic servants such as James and Penny served as personal servants to Mason family members. Mrs. Eilbeck's Bess and Charles were cooks — highly esteemed and very valuable “property.” Joe delivered letters and parcels for George Mason. Mulatto Dick, trained to wait and serve at the dining table, distressed the Mason household when he ran away from Gunston Hall.
Tom and Liberty were skilled carpenters who received the privilege of living at Log Town, some distance from the mansion house. Gunston Nell, a midwife, earned money for herself from a neighboring plantation. Nace served as an overseer at the Occoquan Quarter. Skilled with horses and responsible for the oversight of daily and weekly tasks on the quarter, Nace was perhaps the most trusted of all of the Mason slaves.
Click here for more information on individual slaves.
http://www.gunstonhall.org/georgemason/slavery.html