Virginia archaeologists discover colonial garden that holds clues to enslaved gardeners

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of the greatest displays of wealth in colonial America: an ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners cultivated exotic plants from around the world.

Such plots of land were scattered throughout the British colonies and served as status symbols for the elite. They were the 18th century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini.

The garden at Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in the Virginia colonial legislature. He is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married future U.S. President George Washington after the death of Custis’ son, Daniel.

Historians have also been intrigued by the elder Custis’s botanical adventures, which were well documented in letters and later books. Yet these excavations are as much about the people who farmed the land as they are about Custis himself.

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he didn’t do the work,” said Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, the living history museum that now owns the property. “Everything we see on the ground that is associated with the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very talented.”

Archaeologists pulled out fence posts 3 feet (1 meter) thick and carved from red cedar. They discovered gravel paths, including a large central walkway. Stains in the soil show where plants grew in rows.

During the excavations, a pierced coin was also discovered, which was usually worn as a talisman by young African Americans. Another find is fragments of a clay chamber pot, which was a portable toilet, probably used by people who were slaves.

The animals appear to have been deliberately buried under fence posts. Among them were two decapitated chickens and a single cow’s foot. In a shallow hole, which was probably a plant, a snake without a skull was found.

“We have to think about whether we’re seeing traditions that aren’t European,” Gary said. “Are they West African traditions? We need to do more research. But it’s those kinds of things that keep us trying to understand the enslaved people who were in this space.”

The museum tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings on 300 acres (120 hectares) that include parts of the original city. Founded in 1926, the museum did not begin to tell stories about black Americans until 1979Although more than half of the 2,000 people who lived there were black, most of them were slaves.

In recent years, the museum increased efforts tell a fuller story while trying to attract more black visitors. He plans to reconstruct one of the the oldest black churches in the country and renovates what is considered the oldest in the country survival of a school for black children.

There are also plans to recreate Custis’s home and garden in Williamsburg, then known as Custis Square. Unlike some historic gardens, the restoration will be done without the benefit of surviving maps or diagrams, relying instead on what Gary described as the most detailed landscape archaeology in the museum’s history.

The garden disappeared after Custis’s death in 1749. However, excavations have shown it to have been about two-thirds the size of a football pitch, and descriptions from the period mention statues of Greek gods and sheared trees cut into the shapes of spheres and pyramids.

The garden’s legacy lives on through Custis’ correspondence with the British botanist Peter Collinson, who traded plants with other gardeners around the world. Between 1734 and 1746, Custis and Collinson exchanged seeds and letters on trading ships crossing the Atlantic.

The men likely introduced new plants to their communities, said Eve Otmar, Colonial Williamsburg’s master gardener of history. For example, Custis is believed to have written one of the earliest written records of growing tomatoes in Williamsburg, known at the time as “love apples” and native to Mexico and Central and South America.

Custis’s gardeners also planted strawberries, pistachios, and almonds, among 100 other imported plants. It’s not always clear from his letters which ones were successful in Virginia’s climate. Recent pollen analysis of the soil indicates the presence of stone fruits, such as peaches and cherries, in the past, which wasn’t a huge surprise.

The garden existed at a time when European empires and slavery were still expanding. Botanical gardens were often used to discover new commodity crops that could enrich colonial powers.

But Custis’ garden was primarily a display of his wealth. A study of the area’s topography placed his garden in direct view of Williamsburg’s only church at the time. Everyone would have seen the garden’s fence, but few were invited inside.

Custis delighted his guests with a variety of imperial lily, which is native to the Middle East and parts of Asia and boasted clusters of hanging bell-shaped flowers.

“In the 18th century, these were extraordinary things,” Otmar said. “Only a certain class of people could experience this. A wealthy person today – he buys a Lamborghini.”

The museum is still trying to learn more about the people who worked in the garden.

Crystal Castleberry, Colonial Williamsburg’s public archaeologist, has met with descendants of more than 200 people who were enslaved by the Custis family on its various plantations. However, there is too little information in surviving documents to determine whether an ancestor lived and worked at Custis Square.

After Daniel Custis died in 1757, two people named Cornelia and Beck were listed in the Williamsburg estate. But their names raise even more questions about who they were and what happened to them.

“Are they related?” Castleberry asked. “Are they afraid of separating or selling? Or maybe they’ll be reunited with loved ones in other properties?”