Syphax was born into slavery in Alexandria County, Virginia, about 1825. His mother was Maria Carter, an enslaved mixed-race woman who was the daughter of Ariana, a slave, and planter George Washington Parke Custis. He owned the plantation known as Arlington, where Maria and her mother Ariana lived and worked. (Custis was the only grandson of Martha Custis Washington, by her first marriage, and the step-grandson and adopted son of George Washington). Syphax's father was Charles Syphax, a slave at Mount Vernon who had overseen construction of Arlington House. By the mid-1820s Charles had been taken by Custis to Arlington when he took over the property. Custis allowed Maria and Charles to marry in the house.
