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===Creation and divisions in colonial and early statehood era=== As population increased in the area, the General Assembly of the colony of Virginia split [[Stafford County, Virginia]] in 1731, and added a section which had previously been part of [[King George County, Virginia|King George County]] in order to create Prince William County.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historicprincewilliam.org/creation.html |title=Legislation creating Prince William County, Virginia |access-date=September 20, 2008 |publisher=Historic Prince William|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000422065539/http://historicprincewilliam.org/creation.html|archive-date=April 22, 2000}}</ref> The county was named for [[Prince William, Duke of Cumberland]], the third son of King [[George II of Great Britain|George II]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://capitolwords.org/date/2006/09/29/E1975-2_commemorating-the-275th-anniversary-of-prince-will/|title=Commemorating the 275th anniversary of Prince William County, Virginia|publisher=Sunlight Foundation|access-date=May 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317092557/http://capitolwords.org/date/2006/09/29/E1975-2_commemorating-the-275th-anniversary-of-prince-will/|archive-date=March 17, 2014}}</ref> The area encompassed by the 1731 act creating Prince William County originally included all of what later became the counties of [[Arlington County|Arlington]], [[Fairfax County, Virginia|Fairfax]], [[Fauquier County|Fauquier]], and [[Loudoun County|Loudoun]]; and the [[Independent city (United States)|independent cities]] of [[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria]], [[Fairfax, Virginia|Fairfax]], [[Falls Church, Virginia|Falls Church]], [[Manassas, Virginia|Manassas]], and [[Manassas Park, Virginia|Manassas Park]]. Fairfax County was split from Prince William County in 1742, and first Loudoun (in 1757) and then the incorporated town of Alexandria (in 1779, part of which later became Arlington County) would later be split from Fairfax County. Fauquier County was created from western Prince William County in 1759. In 1790 Prince William County's population was 58% white; most of the remainder were [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved African Americans]]. The county had been an area of tobacco plantations, but planters were changing to cultivate mixed crops due to soil exhaustion and changes in the market. In the first two decades after the Revolution, the number and percentage of free blacks increased in Virginia as some whites freed their slaves, based on revolutionary ideals.
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