Virginia Colonial-Era Garden Yields Clues to Enslaved Workers

Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America’s most lavish displays of opulence: An ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world. Such plots of land were the 18th-century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini. The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married George Washington after Custis’ son Daniel died. Historians also have been intrigued by the elder Custis’ botanical adventures, reports the AP. And yet this excavation is as much about the people who cultivated the land as it is about Custis.

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he wasn’t the one doing the work,” says Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, which now owns the property. “Everything we see in the ground that’s related to the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very skilled.” Some finds:

• A pierced coin that was typically worn as a good-luck charm by young African Americans. Another is the shards of an earthenware chamber pot that likely was used by enslaved people.
• Animals appear to have been intentionally buried under some fence posts. They included two chickens with their heads removed, as well as a single cow’s foot. A snake without a skull was found in a shallow hole that had likely contained a plant. “We have to wonder … are they West African traditions?” Gary says. “It’s features like those that make us continue to try and understand the enslaved people who were in this space.”
• The garden disappeared after Custis’ death in 1749. But the dig has determined it was about two-thirds the size of a football field, while descriptions from the time reference lead statues of Greek gods and topiaries trimmed into balls and pyramids. In letters, Custis referenced one of the earliest known references in America to growing “apples of love”—ie, tomatoes.

In recent years, the museum has boosted efforts to tell a more complete story about the Black Americans who lived in Williamsburg. It plans to reconstruct one of the nation’s oldest Black churches and is restoring what is believed to be the country’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children.

(More Williamsburg stories.)