Family Strength

On historic Powhatan Paramountcy land, Keziah Carter, descended from the local Powhatan tribe leader Keziah Powhatan, bought 50 acres in 1842, reclaiming land originally inhabited by her ancestors at a time when women seldom owned property before the Civil War. Before the war, she also purchased the freedom of her husband, Robert, a Black man, from indenture. Together they had 10 children and lived, bartered, and sold property and food within their family and community, earning enough to provide an inheritance. Keziah and her family, including Mills and Boston lines, became key landholders in the area. In 1852, her son Robert Jr. bought 10 acres of land that is now Vienna, Virginia, and his family helped establish the First Baptist Church of Vienna in 1867. Keziah and her descendants are buried nearby in the Carter Family Cemetery on land they once owned. A Fairfax County Register of Free Negroes entry for her daughter Sally Carter identified her as the daughter of Keziah Carter, a free woman of colour born free, but revealed little else, masking the family’s multiracial identity and obscuring their Native American heritage. The joining of indigenous families from Fairfax County, including the Mills and Boston family, reflected intermarriage among ethnic groups that created new multiracial communities in Fairfax County.

Tysons, Virginia · United States