Grand Contraband Camp

Grand Contraband Camp was located in Elizabeth City County near Fort Monroe and the downtown section of the present-day independent city of Hampton, Virginia during and immediately after the American Civil War. The area was a refuge for escaped slaves who the Union forces refused to return to their former Confederate masters, holding them instead as "Contraband of War". The Virginia Peninsula's Grand Contraband Camp was the first self-contained African American community in the United States.

Confederate slaves in Union hands: legal status

When Virginia seceded from the United States in 1861, Fort Monroe at the eastern tip of the Virginia Peninsula remained in the possession of the US Army. During much of the American Civil War, the commander at Fort Monroe was Brigadier General Benjamin Butler, a lawyer by profession. General Butler took the position that, since the Confederate states considered slaves to be chattel ("property"), and that certain individuals were property obtained by the Union through war, his refusal to return escaped slaves to masters supporting the Confederacy amounted to classifying them as "Contraband of war".

The term "contraband" in referring escaped slaves first enters the Official Records in U.S. Navy correspondence on August 10, 1861 when Acting Master William Budd of the gunboat USS "Resolute" uses the term (Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I - Volume 4: page 604).

Three slaves, Frank Baker, James Townsend and Sheppard Mallory had been contracted by their owners to the Confederate Army under General Benjamin Huger to help construct defense batteries at Sewell's Point across the mouth of Hampton Roads from Union-held Fort Monroe. They escaped at night and rowed a skiff to Old Point Comfort, where they sought asylum at the adjacent Fort Monroe.

Prior to the War, the owners of the slaves would have been legally entitled to request their return (as property) and this would have in all likelihood have occurred. However, Virginia had just declared (by secession) that it no longer considered itself part of the United States. General Butler, who was educated as an attorney, took the position that, if Virginia considered itself a foreign power to the U.S., then he was under no obligation to return the 3 men; he would instead hold them as "contraband of war." Thus, when Confederate Major John B. Cary made the request for their return as Butler had anticipated, it was denied on the above basis. While not truly free men (yet), the three men undoubtedly were much satisfied to have their new status as "contraband" rather than slaves. They worked at the Union Army's directions for very minimal pay.

A further clarification was accomplished by the Confiscation Act of 1861, which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces.

The camp is created

The word spread quickly among southeastern Virginia's slave communities. While becoming a "contraband" did not mean full freedom, it was apparently seen by many slaves as at least a step in that direction. The day after Butler's decision, many more escaped slaves also found their way to Fort Monroe appealing to become contraband. This expanded into the area becoming a magnet for slaves who could escape.

As the number of former slaves grew too large to be housed inside the Fort, from the burned ruins of the City of Hampton the Confederates had left behind, the contrabands erected housing outside the crowded base. They called their new settlement the Grand Contraband Camp (which they nicknamed "Slabtown"). By the end of the war in April 1865, less than 4 years later, an estimated 10,000 had applied to gain "contraband" status, many living nearby. The contraband slaves of the Virginia Peninsula are credited with establishing the United State's first self-contained African-American community, which created businesses, churches, schools and social order by former slaves.

Other contraband camps sprung up in many areas during the Civil War. One notable location was not far to the south, at Roanoke Island on North Carolina's Outer Banks, which had also been home of the "Lost Colony" of 1587, almost 300 years earlier.

Contrabands join the Union cause

Many contraband slaves and free blacks voluntarily served in the Union Army, forming the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT). Some also became scouts, guides, spies, cooks, hospital workers, blacksmiths, and mule-drivers, contributing immensely to the Union war effort for the balance of the Civil War. A number of Union officers became much more aware of both the potential and plight of the contrabands, and worked for and made contributions to educational efforts for them, even after the War.

Education

Near Fort Monroe, but outside its protective walls, in an area which later became part of the campus of Hampton University, both adult and child contrabands and free blacks and mulattos were taught to read and write by pioneering teacher Mrs. Mary S. Peake and others. To do so meant defying a Virginia law against educating slaves, free blacks and mulattos which had been in place since 1831 and the Southampton Insurrection.

Classes were held outdoors, often under a certain large oak tree. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was read to the contrabands and free blacks there, giving the tree its name and claim to fame as the Emancipation Oak.

However, due to some political considerations when drafting the Proclamation, for most of the contrabands, true emancipation did not come until the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery was ratified in late 1865.

The laws enacted in the aftermath of the 1831 Turner Rebellion undoubtedly contributed greatly to the widespread illiteracy facing the freedmen and other African Americans after the American Civil War and Emancipation 35 years later. The unfairness of such laws helped draw attention to the problem of illiteracy as one of the great challenges confronting these people as they sought to join the free enterprise system and support themselves during Reconstruction and thereafter.

Consequently, many religious organizations, former Union Army officers and soldiers, and wealthy philanthropists were inspired to create and fund educational efforts specifically for the betterment of African Americans in the South. They helped create normal schools to generate teachers, such as those which eventually became Hampton University and Tuskegee University. Stimulated by the work of educators such as Dr. Booker T. Washington, by the first third of the 20th century, over 5,000 local schools had been built for blacks in the South with using private matching funds provided by individuals such as Henry H. Rogers, Andrew Carnegie, and most notably, Julius Rosenwald, each of whom had arisen from modest roots to become wealthy.

Legacy

* In the years during and after the American Civil War, former slaves and their descendent's made enormous contributions in many areas to include education, politics, business, law, medicine, planning and development, military service, the arts and other professional areas of endeavor to include a financial institution established in the City of Hampton.

* In modern times, the Contraband Historical Society was organized by their descendants, to honor and perpetuate their story. Authors such as Phyllis Haislip have written about the plight of contraband slaves as well.

* Some of the streets within the Grand Contraband Camp and named at that time still exist near downtown Hampton. These include Grant Street, Lincoln Street, Union Street, Hope Street (now High Court Lane), and Liberty Street (now Armistead Avenue).

Sources

* [http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?012+ful+HJ42 Virginia Legislative Information System]

* [http://cfmnp.org/Contraband.htm Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park]

See also

* Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
* Grove, Virginia