Augustine Washington was a partner in the Principio Co. Most of the  
Principio partners lived in England (which caused no end of problems  
during the Revolution) and most of their facilities were in Maryland.  
Their first "ironmaster" neglected to make sure that the land he  
bought had iron ore (he was primarily interested in his own  
commercial activities). His replacement, John England (an experienced  
ironmaster), spent his first few months in America looking for and  
securing iron ore for the company. It being hard to make iron without  
ore.

One of the places he found it was on land owned by Augustine  
Washington on Accokeek Creek, near Fredericksburg (called Potomac IW,  
but today called Accokeek IW). A blast furnace and iron mine was  
built there around 1726. For a while it also served as the  
headquarters of the Principio Co. This ironworks was closed around  
1753-57 and the HQ shifted back to Maryland. However, GW retained a  
minority interest in the company. I am not aware of any of the  
Washington's slaves working iron ore after Accokeek/Potomac closed.  
Because of the medieval (really!) nature of land tenure in the  
Northern Neck, the Fairfaxes got 1/3 of all of the iron ore mined. As  
a result Principio, and many other Virginia ironworks, switched to  
using ore from Maryland in the 1750s. While I suppose technically  
some of the company slaves were GW's, he had little if any  control  
over what they did, nor how they were treated.

James Brothers, RPA
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On Jun 13, 2007, at 22:11, Anita Wills wrote:

> My brother wrote his masters thesis about the migration of blacks  
> from the south to northern cities. That was the first time I saw on  
> paper, how this migration affected America. My paternal Grandfather  
> left South Carolina for Pennsylvania to work in the Steel Mill. The  
> small town that I was raised in was made up of immigrants from  
> Europe (mostly Communist Countries), and blacks from southern  
> states. The main industry when I was growing up was the Steel Mill.  
> I learned about the role iron ore played in the Revolution while  
> reading about George Washington, whose slaves who worked with Iron  
> Ore.
>
> The economics of slavery encompassed more than Cotton and Tobacco.  
> Thank you for pointing this out.
>
> Anita
>
>> From: James Brothers <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia  
>> history              <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Slavery and immoral stance, etc.
>> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:57:03 -0400
>>
>> It should be remembered that while the US played a part in the  
>> slave  trade, most of the slaves shipped out of Africa to the  
>> Americas went  to Brazil and the Caribbean (often in ships out of  
>> Boston and  Baltimore, but also Liverpool and lots of other  
>> places). But more  importantly it was the British who outlawed  
>> slavery and enforced an  embargo of the Atlantic trade. This was  
>> followed by the US. It was  the British and US Navy that finally  
>> shut down the Atlantic slave  trade. The East African (overseas)  
>> trade was not shut down until  later, and it can be argued that  
>> portions of the trans-Sahara trade  flourish today. Slavery in the  
>> US should be viewed in a world  context, not just as a peculiar  
>> American problem. Because it was  transnational and its solution  
>> was as well.
>>
>> My primary area of study is the iron industry. Many, in some case   
>> most or even all, of the workers at blast furnaces, forges, and   
>> foundries in the South and in the North were slaves.
>>
>>             Negroes were used in the ironworks from the early   
>> establishment of the Pennsylvania industry.  In 1727 the shortage  
>> of  labor was so acute that the ironmasters in the colony  
>> petitioned the  Assembly for permission to import Negroes free of  
>> duty to labor at  their works... A bill permitting Negroes  
>> imported into the colony for  the express purpose of laboring at  
>> ironworks to enter duty free  failed by the deciding vote of the  
>> Speaker.  Two years later,  however, the duty of £5 on each Negro  
>> brought into the Province was  reduced to £2... While Negro slaves  
>> and freed Negroes usually worked  at menial tasks, at many  
>> ironworks they were skilled workmen.   [Bining 1938:99-102]
>>
>> It was reported by Acrelius that the workers at PA ironworks were   
>> "generally negroes". the most interesting case is that of  
>> Monmouth  County, NJ. It was the site of an early ironworks,  
>> Tinton Falls  (circa 1677). The large number of slaves used there  
>> skewed this rural  counties population well into the 19C. For  
>> years no one could figure  out why a rural county in NJ had such a  
>> large Black population. The  reason was the descendants of the  
>> Tinton Falls slaves.
>>
>> James Brothers, RPA
>> [log in to unmask]