King George III

by Benjamin West (1738—1820)

Oil on canvas; 255.3 × 182.9 cm (100.5 × 72 in). Royal Collection Trust, London, England.

by Joshua Reynolds (1723—92)

Oil on canvas; 2774 x 1855 mm. Royal Academy of Arts, London, England.

by Thomas Gainsborough (1727—88)

Oil on canvas; 238.8 × 158.7 cm (94 × 62.5 in). Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace, London, England.

by Mather Brown (1761—1831)

Oil on canvas.

by Allan Ramsay (1713—84)

Oil on canvas. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

by Allan Ramsay (1713—84)

Oil on canvas; 53.5 x 79 cm. Private Collection.

by Johann Zoffany (1733—1810)

Oil on canvas; 163.2 x 137.3 cm. Royal Collection Trust, London, England.

by William Beechey (1753—1839)

Oil on canvas; 92 in. x 57 in. (2337 mm x 1448 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London, England.

Racial prejudice worked to perpetuate American slavery, even if it was not essential to sustain the institution. Slavery, serfdom, and peonage had existed elsewhere without racial connotations. Indeed, bondage had been so historically ubiquitous one might well ask why, by the 1760’s, it had come to trouble so many white Americans so much. The answer lies in part — and this part help explain why people like Mason did not act more aggressively on their concerns — in the reservations many whites felt about living alongside members of a supposedly inferior race, whether slave or free. The problem was inherent in American slavery, and emancipation, by undermining white control, would only make it worse.

Jeff Broadwater
George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)