2016-12-30 00:25:26
In Fairfax, you can step right into African-American history and see how slaves and freemen interacted with the country's most powerful families. This set the stage for the Civil War and Emancipation. At George Mason’s Gunston Hall, learn firsthand the contradictions of American slavery. George Mason called slavery a “slow poison” and authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which inspired the Bill of Rights, yet he did not free his own 90 slaves, many of whom were highly skilled artisans who made his estate function. Tours show how the Mason family and these slaves lived side-by-side. Sully Historic Site Historic African-American communities connected to estates survive to this day. Gum Springs, the historic African-American area near Mount Vernon, still details that legacy with exhibits on West Ford, Gum Springs' founder and a freed slave of George Washington. Sully Historic Site near Dulles Airport has reconstructed its slave quarters after extensive archaeological research. The home of Richard Bland Lee, uncle of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Sully offers an insightful look into 18th- and 19th-century slavery. In his will, George Washington made a provision that all of the slaves that he owned at Mount Vernon be freed upon the death of his wife, Martha.
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