Ferdinando Fairfax

{{About|Ferdinando Fairfax, son of Bryan Fairfax | Ferdinando Fairfax, the parliamentary general|Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron}}

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| name = Ferdinando Fairfax

| image = Ferdinando Fairfax (1766 - 1820).png

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| birth_date = 1766 or 1774

| birth_place = Colony of Virginia

| death_date = September 24, 1820 or September 26, 1820

| death_place = Mount Eagle, Fairfax County, Virginia or Jefferson County, Virginia

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| spouse = Elizabeth Blair Cary

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| children = 10

| parents = Bryan Fairfax
Elizabeth Cary

| relatives = Thomas Fairfax (brother)
Sally Fairfax (aunt)
George William Fairfax (uncle)
William Fairfax (grandfather)

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Ferdinando Fairfax (born 1766 or 1774{{cite web|url=https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/2159|title=Ferdinando Fairfax|website=e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia Online|last=Rasmussen|first=Barbara|date=20 February 2024|access-date=1 November 2024}} in Virginia; died 24 September or 26 September 1820 at Mount Eagle in Fairfax County or in Jefferson County, Virginia, now West Virginia) was a Virginia landowner and member of the prominent Fairfax family.

Early life

He was the youngest son of Bryan Fairfax, 8th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1736–1802) and Elizabeth Cary. His brother was Thomas Fairfax, 9th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1762–1846) and his grandfather was Col. William Fairfax (1691–1757). George Washington and Martha Washington, who traveled to Towlston Grange[http://www.gfhs.org/pics/houses/towl_new.htm Restored Towlston Grange, Great Falls Historical Society] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100407150944/http://gfhs.org/pics/houses/towl_new.htm |date=2010-04-07 }} after his birth, were his godparents. Ferdinando was the heir to his uncle, George William Fairfax (1729–1787), son of William Fairfax (1691–1757), who was married to Sally Cary (ca. 1730–1811), his mother Elizabeth's sister. George William Fairfax was Washington's close friend.{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/storyofexpeditio00snow| quote=George William Fairfax.| title=The Story of the Expedition of the Young Surveyors, George Washington and George William Fairfax: to Survey the Virginia Lands of Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, 1747-1748| author=William H. Snowden| publisher=G. H. Ramey| year=1902 }}

Career

Fairfax served as a justice of the peace for Jefferson County, Virginia and was, at the same time, the largest slave owner in the County.

From the 1770s onward, individuals in France, Britain, and North America developed plans to colonize freed black people as a way of encouraging emancipation. These individuals proposed to form colonies in Africa, in the Caribbean, or in the American West; notable proponents include Granville Sharp of England, LaFayette of France, and Thomas Jefferson of America. One of the first such plans came from four enslaved black men in New England, who petitioned the colonial government for permission to buy their own freedom and then transport themselves to a colony they wanted to found on the African coast.{{cite book|last1=Guyatt|first1=Nicholas|title=Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation|date=2016|publisher=Basic Books|location=New York|pages=197–224|isbn=978-0465018413}}

Fairfax offered his own "practicable scheme" for ending slavery through colonization when he developed his "Plan for Liberating the Negroes within the United States" in 1790.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}} Many of these plans were similar in that they wanted the abolition of slaves to be gradual, they wanted the government to compensate the slave owners for the lost property, they wanted the government to pay to educate and prepare free blacks for life as independent people, and they wanted to colonize the freed slaves in a separate place from the white society. This was because most people{{citation needed|date=November 2024}} at the time believed that the races would not be able to get along if they tried to live together.

Fairfax was attracted to visionary schemes and also spent money resolving squatter lawsuits. His estate, Shannon Hill in present-day Jefferson County, West Virginia, was sold by his daughter in 1825 and the original home was demolished.

Personal life

File:GeorgeWilliamFairfax.jpegFerdinando married his first cousin Elizabeth Blair Cary, daughter of Wilson Miles Cary and Sarah Blair. The couple had the following children:

George William Fairfax (born November 5, 1797), who married Isabella McNeil
Wilson Miles Cary Fairfax, who married Lucy Griffeth
Farinda Fairfax, who married Perrin Washington, a descendant of George Washington's brother Samuel Washington (1734–1781).
Mary Fairfax who married Rev. Samuel Hagins
Sally Fairfax
Ferdinando Fairfax II, who married Mary Jett
Christiana Fairfax, who married Thomas Ragland
William Henry Fairfax
Thomas Fairfax
Archibald Blair Fairfax