Slavery, Law, and George Mason

One of the goals of the ECGM project is to reconstruct the experiences of children, women and men owned by George Mason IV.  Enslaved individuals of Gunston Hall were particularly affected by 18th-century laws governing liberty.  Virginia law-enforcers strictly upheld codes of bondage, a subject that concerned Mason but not because he was against an institution that denied freedom in America. Colonial Fairfax County records reveal that our university namesake, an aspirant law-maker, was uninterested in the legal consequences of slavery, as it pertained to the life outcomes of black people in America.