Gardening at Gunston

The people owned by George Mason IV developed their resilience through self-sustaining activities. They grew their own food and hunted for game after completing daunting hours of work that took a toll on their bodies. In colonial Virginia, enslaved individuals used their one day off, Sunday, to garden, kill deer and muskrat, and complete other personal tasks which bolstered their community.[1] The correspondence between wealthy Lowcountry and Chesapeake planters in the 18th century suggests that their bonded laborers knew more about cultivation than the master class.[2] Enslaved farmers successfully harvested beets, peas, and other crops, which they sometimes sold to earn a little income.[3] 

Most interesting, plantation owners segregated the realm of family-based agriculture, allowing enslaved people to till their own gardens so as to avoid the “financial burden” of feeding workers and their dependents.[4]  George Mason IV was one of those plantation owners.  He erected a six-foot fence around a rectangular area that stretched some yards from the back of his home.[5]   This boxed-in spot effectively announced that the master had his own personal plot with a clear perimeter while his “slaves” had their ground off in the distance where he did not have to see them at work for their own families.  Of course, enslaved laborers maintained Mason’s special garden and repaired that tall fence.

Garden view.png

The gardens that the Mason family tended for their personal use can be seen from the back porch of Gunston Hall. The Potomac River, where enslaved people operated fisheries, can be seen in the rear left corner.


[1] Terry K. Dunn, Among His Slaves: George Mason’s Struggle with Slavery (Alexandria, VA: Commonwealth Books of Virginia, 2016), 52.

[2] Philip Morgan compares theses kinds of 18th-century views of elite colonial property-owners in the Lowcountry with similar observations of the master class in the Chesapeake region:  Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake & Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 142.

[3] Ibid, 43.

[4] Ibid, 45.

[5] During a May 2017 research site-visit, this crucial insight was presented and explained by Rebecca Martin, Director of Education and Guest Experiences, Gunston Hall Plantation.

Creator: Farhaj Murshed