This summer, lots of families will head to the Atlantis Waterpark at Bull Run in Centreville, Va. to take advantage of its massive waterslides and cool pools and beat the oppressive summer heat.
But before it was a vacation destination, the area was home to a slave plantation owned by Robert Carter III, a rich white man who owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime. And now researchers have discovered the graves of over 100 slaves who once lived and worked on that plantation.
Two years ago, researchers found over 90 graves belonging to enslaved African Americans at Bull Run Regional Park with the help of ground-penetrating radar technology. This week, 11 more graves were found on site. Researchers say that, though Carter rubbed elbows with some of the most well-known slave owners in history, something about him was different.
“He certainly knew George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and all the other founders. He was a contemporary of them,” Paul Gilbert, Executive Director of NOVA Parks, told WJLA News. “But he actually believed when people said that all people were created equal that they were.”
In the early 1790s – more than 70 years before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared enslaved people free – Carter had a change of heart, deciding to start freeing his over 500 slaves over time and helped to give them a leg up as they began their new lives. Gilbert and other historians believe the change was due to his conversion to the Baptist faith.
“He tried to help the people he emancipated with money, education, help them get started farming,” Paul McCray, a historian at NOVA Parks, told WTOP News.
Chrystal Gaskins, a descendant of the former slaves, says she was excited to learn the news of the newly discovered graves and hopes that with more research, she can learn more about her family members.
“When they were free, they were given options to rent and later to purchase property. And so our families had homes, they had farms. They ran businesses,” she said. “The saddening part is we are here and we really don’t know who they are right now. But I won’t give up in my lifetime continuing to research somebody here that we know.”