Women in the 18th-century Planter Class

During the 18th century, white women of Virginia plantation society lived in a patriarchal setting defined by slavery.  As wives and daughters, they were expected to command enslaved people in the home and field.^[1] However, mistresses “rarely appear[ed] to have sought economic information from their husbands” about the value of chattel property.^[2] The surviving records of George Mason IV disclose that his wife Ann Eilbeck Mason may have been an exception for she was well versed in the financial responsibilities that came with running a plantation household, which required the purchase, sale and use of enslaved individuals.^[3]