Use Restrictions

Public Domain. There are no known restrictions.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Alternative Form Available

A digitized version of this document can be found here: Deed of gift for an enslaved woman named Lucy by Maynadier Mason.

Preferred Citation

Deed of gift for an enslaved woman named Lucy by Maynadier Mason, C0363, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

The donor is unknown.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Amanda Brent in June 2019. EAD markup completed by Amanda Brent in June 2019. This collection used to be a part of the Virginia historical documents collection, C0034.

Historical and Biographical Information

The enslavement of individuals of African descent - as well as other peoples of color - was legalized in the United States in 1641, with African Americans being the majority of enslaved individuals around 1708. The demand for enslaved individuals to work on southern plantations in the U.S. began in 1694, which only increased over time. In 1861 the Civil War erupted, one of the key issues of the war being states' rights as they related to the institution of slavery. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclimation, which declared all enslaved peoples in Confederate states free, but this did not end slavery entirely. Two years later on December 18, 1865, slavery in the United States was officially abolished with the 13th Amendment. Despite the legal freedom of African Americans post-Amendment, the racist treatment and oppression of African Americans did not wane, resulting in Jim Crow law and eventually catalyzing the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Maynadier Mason was the son of John Mason and the grandson of George Mason IV. His brother was the U.S. senator John Murray Mason.

Scope and Content

Deed of gift for an enslaved woman named Lucy by Maynadier Mason, written on March 29, 1853. In the deed, Mason - a resident of Fairfax County, Virginia - gives Lucy to his maternal aunt through marriage, Mary Ann Clark, who lived in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Lucy is described as a twenty six-year old woman who Clark will enslave "for and during her life[.]"

Arrangement

This is a single item collection.

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center also holds other collections related to the topic of slavery in the United States, including the George Mason letters to John Augustine Washington III, the Letter to James H. Reid regarding the enslavement of a group of African Americans, and the Adam Bell notice for escaped enslaved man.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Fairfax County (Va.)
• Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
• Slave trade
• Slavery -- United States