VA, USA
The Town That Was Built by Hands That Owned Nothing
Alexandria's wharves were built and worked largely by enslaved labor. The hogsheads of tobacco that made the town's fortunes were rolled to ships by men and women who received nothing from the trade they sustained. The Carlyle House, the merchant townhouses along King Street, the Christ Church that Washington attended — all of it was constructed and maintained by enslaved workers whose legal status made their labor legally invisible as a contribution to the community.
When the Revolution came, Alexandria's enslaved residents found themselves in an impossible position that historians are only beginning to examine carefully. The Patriot cause demanded that white Alexandrians declare their opposition to tyranny and their commitment to natural rights. It made no parallel demand on those same Alexandrians to extend those rights to the people they owned.
Some enslaved Alexandrians sought to use the chaos of wartime for their own liberation. Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation offering freedom to enslaved men who joined British forces was heard along the Potomac as clearly as anywhere in Virginia. How many Alexandria-area enslaved people responded is not precisely known; the Patriot record has little reason to document escapes that embarrassed the cause.
Others remained in place, carrying the daily burden of sustaining households and commercial operations while the men of those households went to war. The women, children, and elderly who could not fight continued doing exactly what they had always done: feeding, cleaning, maintaining, building.
After the war, Alexandria became one of the most active slave-trading markets in the eastern United States, a development that sits in severe tension with the town's Revolutionary heritage. The same wharves that loaded Continental Army supplies in 1777 were loading coffles of enslaved people for sale further south by the 1790s. Franklin and Armfield, the largest domestic slave-trading firm in American history, operated from a building on Duke Street a few blocks from Carlyle House. The proximity is not coincidental — it is the logical outcome of an economy that had never questioned its foundation.
Sources
Primary & Secondary Sources
Fairfax County Resolves, July 18, 1774
Library of Congress · PRIMARY · TIER1
Co-authored by George Mason and George Washington, these resolutions adopted at the Alexandria courthouse established the Fairfax County Committee of Safety and articulated an early statement of colonial rights. A direct precursor to the Continental Association.
George Washington's Letters from Alexandria, 1769-1775
Library of Congress, George Washington Papers · PRIMARY · TIER1
Washington's outgoing correspondence from Alexandria and Mount Vernon documenting his commercial activities, colonial boycott participation, and early political organizing in Fairfax County before the outbreak of war.
George Washington's Mount Vernon: Alexandria and the Revolutionary Context
Mount Vernon Ladies' Association · INSTITUTIONAL · TIER1
Homepage URL removed 2026-07-07 — redteam audit found this links to institution front page, not a specific document or finding aid. Title: "George Washington's Mount Vernon: Alexandria and the Revolutionary Context". Needs correct specific URL.
Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792
University of North Carolina Press (Robert A. Rutland, ed.) · PRIMARY · TIER1
Authoritative edition of Mason's papers. Mason, neighbor to Washington and architect of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, operated in the Alexandria-Fairfax County political world throughout the Revolution. Essential for the intellectual context of northern Virginia Patriotism.
Port of Alexandria Customs Records, 1770-1785
National Archives and Records Administration · PRIMARY · TIER1
Custom house records documenting the trade disruptions caused by the colonial boycotts, the closure of the port by Dunmore, and the revival of commerce after independence. Quantifies Alexandria's economic stake in the conflict.
Alexandria, Virginia Town Council Minutes, 1779-1783
Alexandria City Archives · SECONDARY · TIER2
Municipal records documenting wartime governance of Alexandria: price controls, supply impressment, Loyalist property disputes, and the maintenance of port functions during the British occupation of the Chesapeake.
Alexandria, Virginia: A Revolutionary History
Alexandria Historical Society · SECONDARY · TIER2
Local scholarly history of Alexandria covering the town's Patriot committee organization, militia muster, Washington's departures for war, and the wartime economy. Based on courthouse records and surviving family papers.
Gadsby's Tavern Museum: Revolutionary Alexandria
City of Alexandria / Gadsby's Tavern Museum · INSTITUTIONAL · TIER2
Interpretive museum at the surviving 18th-century tavern complex that served as the social and political hub of Revolutionary Alexandria. Washington dined and organized here; the museum holds period furnishings and research materials.
George Washington Masonic National Memorial: Collections
George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association · INSTITUTIONAL · TIER2
Holds significant collections related to Washington and Alexandria Freemasonry during the Revolution, including lodge records, personal relics, and documents tracing Washington's Alexandria connections before and during the war.
https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/10/the-american-revolution-in-alexandria-virginia-upheaval-in-george-washingtons-hometown/
allthingsliberty.com · SECONDARY · TIER2
Discovered by agentic enrichment for Alexandria
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/fairfax-resolves/
encyclopediavirginia.org · SECONDARY · TIER2
Discovered by agentic enrichment for Alexandria
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0080
founders.archives.gov · SECONDARY · TIER2
Discovered by agentic enrichment for Alexandria
Washington: A Life
Penguin Press (Ron Chernow) · SECONDARY · TIER2
Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. The early chapters on Washington's Alexandria years establish his commercial life, his relationship with the town, and the social network he drew on when organizing the Virginia Patriot cause.
Alexandria, Virginia -- Wikipedia
Wikipedia · TERTIARY · TIER3
General reference entry. The History section covers the founding and Revolutionary-era periods. Footnotes reference the Alexandria Historical Society and local newspaper archives.
Visit Alexandria: Revolutionary War History
Visit Alexandria (Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association) · TERTIARY · TIER3
Tourism-oriented overview of Alexandria Revolutionary sites including the courthouse, Christ Church (Washington's parish), and the waterfront. Good for visitor orientation and site identification.