This burial ground of enslaved people is tangible evidence of the system of slavery that existed in Virginia until the end of the Civil War, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution banned the practice. The people buried here were held in bondage and forced to work the farm that became Bull Run Marina. Enslaved Africans were first brought to what would become the United States in 1619, and by the early 1800s slavery was entrenched in the U.S., mostly in the Southern states. While all Northern states banned slavery by 1804, Virginia continued it and by the beginning of the Civil War had more enslaved people than any other state, 490,000. In 1860, 3,117 people were held in slavery in Fairfax County, about 28 percent of the county population. Few records survive about the white family who owned this land and the enslaved people here, but some details are known. The most likely owner was John Woodyard, who bought the land in 1835 and farmed it until his death in 1856. Census records show that he held one or two enslaved people at a time, and in 1850 two enslaved men were recorded on this property, ages 23 and 25. On this small 166-acre farm, they likely worked crops such as hay, wheat, Indian corn, Irish potatoes, and oats, along with cattle, milk cows, and hogs. This pattern fit Fairfax County, where most farms were small and held fewer than six enslaved people, unlike the larger Virginia plantations that grew labor-intensive crops such as tobacco and held many more workers. The burial ground was specially constructed as a circular, flat area with a distinct rim around the edge. Enslaved cemeteries were often placed at field edges to avoid interfering with farming, and the bluff overlooking Bull Run may also have made this site desirable. The graves are typical of other enslaved burial grounds of the era, with stones placed at the head and often at the west end, while smaller footstones may once have marked some graves and later been lost. After Woodyard died in 1856, the land was sold to John Dyer, who appears not to have lived there and in 1858 leased it for 16 years to William T. and A.L. Wine under terms that required careful farming methods, including use of land plaster and clover seed. Such practices were associated with Northern buyers of worn-out Fairfax land who used scientific methods and argued that paid labor produced better results than enslaved labor, though many Virginia farmers adopted the farming methods without changing their labor systems. John Dyer was listed in the 1850 census as owning four enslaved people but none in the 1860 census. Ground-penetrating radar has identified five graves here, oriented west to east, which is common for enslaved burials. Three graves in a row have sunken surfaces that may indicate coffins that later collapsed, while two other burials did not sink and may have been made without coffins.