Contraband (American Civil War)
Encyclopedia
Contraband was a term commonly used in the United States military during the American Civil War
to describe a new status for certain escaped slaves
or those who affiliated with Union
forces after the military (and the United States Congress) determined that the US would not return escaped slaves who went to Union lines to their former Confederate masters and classified them as contraband. They used many as laborers to support Union efforts and soon began to pay them wages. The former slaves set up camps near Union forces, and the Army helped support and educate both adults and children among the refugees. Thousands of men from these camps enlisted in the United States Colored Troops
when recruitment started in 1863.
states had declared secession
from the Union and were engaged in the American Civil War became an issue early in 1861, not long after hostilities commenced. At Fort Monroe
in Virginia
's Hampton Roads
, Major General
Benjamin Butler
, commander, found that three slaves had made their way across Hampton Roads harbor from Confederate-occupied Norfolk County, Virginia
, and presented themselves at Union-held Fort Monroe. General Butler refused to return the escaped slaves to slaveholders' supporting the Confederacy. This amounted to classifying them as "contraband," although the first use of that terminology in military records appears to have been by another officer.(see below).
The three slaves, Frank Baker, James Townsend and Sheppard Mallory, had been contracted by their masters to the Confederate Army to help construct defense batteries at Sewell's Point, across the mouth of Hampton Roads from the Union-held Fort Monroe. They escaped at night and rowed a skiff
to Old Point Comfort
, where they sought asylum
at Fort Monroe.
Prior to the War, the owners of the slaves would have been legally entitled to request their return (as property) and probably would have done so under the federal 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. But, Virginia had declared (by secession) that it no longer was 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 three men; he would hold them as "contraband of war." When Confederate Major John B. Cary requested their return, as Butler had expected, the Union general refused the request.
Gen. Butler did not pay the escaped slaves wages for work that they began to undertake and he continued to refer to them as slaves. On September 25, 1861, the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles
issued a directive which gave "persons of color, commonly known as contrabands", in the employment of the Union Navy pay at the rate of $10 and a full day's ration. Three weeks later, the Union Army followed suit, paying male "contrabands" at Fort Monroe $8 a month and females $4, and specific to that command.
In August, the US Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861
, which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces. The next March, its Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
forbade the restoring of slaves to Confederate masters or the military.
left behind by the Confederates. They called their new settlement Grand Contraband Camp
(which they nicknamed "Slabtown"). By the end of the war in April 1865, less than four years later, an estimated 10,000 escaped slaves had applied to gain "contraband" status, with many living nearby. Across the South, Union forces managed more than 100 contraband camps, although not all were as large. From a camp on Roanoke Island that started in 1862, Horace James developed the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island (1863–1867). Appointed by the Union Army, James was a Congregational chaplain who tried to create a self-sustaining colony at the island.
Near Fort Monroe, but outside its protective walls, the pioneering teacher Mary S. Peake
began to teach both adult and child contrabands to read and write. She was the first black teacher hired by the American Missionary Association
, which sent numerous Northern teachers to the South to teach as well. This area of Elizabeth City County
later became part of the campus of Hampton University
, a historically black college. Defying a Virginia law against educating slaves, she and other teachers held classes outdoors under a certain large oak tree. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation
was read to the contrabands and free blacks there, for which the tree was named the Emancipation Oak
. For most of the contrabands, true emancipation
did not come until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
abolishing slavery was ratified in late 1865.
In modern times, the Contraband Historical Society was organized by the descendants of the contrabands, to honor and perpetuate their story. Authors such as Phyllis Haislip
have written fiction about the contraband slaves as well.
On August 10, 1861, Acting Master William Budd of the gunboat USS Resolute
first used the term in an official US military record. As early as 1812, the term, "contraband" was used to refer to illegally smuggled goods (including slaves).
, thousands of former slaves and free blacks began to enlist in the United States Colored Troops
when the black units were authorized. The Army allowed their families to take refuge at contraband camps. The black troops ultimately composed nearly 10 percent of all the troops in the Union Army.
By the end of the war, there were more than 100 contraband camps in the South. Many were assisted by missionary
teachers recruited from the North by the American Missionary Association
and other groups who, together with free blacks and former slaves, agreed that education of the former slaves was of the highest priority. The teachers often wrote about the desire of former slaves, both adults and children, for education.
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
to describe a new status for certain escaped slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
or those who affiliated with Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
forces after the military (and the United States Congress) determined that the US would not return escaped slaves who went to Union lines to their former Confederate masters and classified them as contraband. They used many as laborers to support Union efforts and soon began to pay them wages. The former slaves set up camps near Union forces, and the Army helped support and educate both adults and children among the refugees. Thousands of men from these camps enlisted in the United States Colored Troops
United States Colored Troops
The United States Colored Troops were regiments of the United States Army during the American Civil War that were composed of African American soldiers. First recruited in 1863, by the end of the Civil War, the men of the 175 regiments of the USCT constituted approximately one-tenth of the Union...
when recruitment started in 1863.
History
The status of southern-owned slaves after ConfederateConfederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
states had declared secession
Secession in the United States
Secession in the United States can refer to secession of a state from the United States, secession of part of a state from that state to form a new state, or secession of an area from a city or county....
from the Union and were engaged in the American Civil War became an issue early in 1861, not long after hostilities commenced. At Fort Monroe
Fort Monroe
Fort Monroe was a military installation in Hampton, Virginia—at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula...
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
's Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...
, Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
Benjamin Butler
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Benjamin Franklin Butler was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts....
, commander, found that three slaves had made their way across Hampton Roads harbor from Confederate-occupied Norfolk County, Virginia
Norfolk County, Virginia
Norfolk County was a county of the South Hampton Roads in eastern Virginia in the United States that was created in 1691. After the American Civil War, for a period of about 100 years, portions of Norfolk County were lost and the territory of the county reduced as they became parts of the separate...
, and presented themselves at Union-held Fort Monroe. General Butler refused to return the escaped slaves to slaveholders' supporting the Confederacy. This amounted to classifying them as "contraband," although the first use of that terminology in military records appears to have been by another officer.(see below).
The three slaves, Frank Baker, James Townsend and Sheppard Mallory, had been contracted by their masters to the Confederate Army to help construct defense batteries at Sewell's Point, across the mouth of Hampton Roads from the Union-held Fort Monroe. They escaped at night and rowed a skiff
Skiff
The term skiff is used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boat. The word is related to ship and has a complicated etymology: "skiff" comes from the Middle English skif, which derives from the Old French esquif, which in turn derives from the Old Italian schifo, which is itself of...
to Old Point Comfort
Old Point Comfort
Old Point Comfort is a point of land located in the independent city of Hampton. It lies at the extreme tip of the Virginia Peninsula at the mouth of Hampton Roads in the United States....
, where they sought asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
at Fort Monroe.
Prior to the War, the owners of the slaves would have been legally entitled to request their return (as property) and probably would have done so under the federal 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. But, Virginia had declared (by secession) that it no longer was part of the United States. General Butler, who was educated as an attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, took the position that, if Virginia considered itself a foreign power to the U.S., then he was under no obligation to return the three men; he would hold them as "contraband of war." When Confederate Major John B. Cary requested their return, as Butler had expected, the Union general refused the request.
Gen. Butler did not pay the escaped slaves wages for work that they began to undertake and he continued to refer to them as slaves. On September 25, 1861, the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles
Gideon Welles
Gideon Welles was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869. His buildup of the Navy to successfully execute blockades of Southern ports was a key component of Northern victory of the Civil War...
issued a directive which gave "persons of color, commonly known as contrabands", in the employment of the Union Navy pay at the rate of $10 and a full day's ration. Three weeks later, the Union Army followed suit, paying male "contrabands" at Fort Monroe $8 a month and females $4, and specific to that command.
In August, the US Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861
Confiscation Act of 1861
The Confiscation Act of 1861 was an act of Congress during the early months of the American Civil War permitting the confiscation of any of property, including slaves, being used to support the Confederate insurrection....
, which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces. The next March, its Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves was a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War forbidding the military to return escaped slaves to their owners. As Union armies entered Southern territory during the early years of the War, emboldened slaves began fleeing...
forbade the restoring of slaves to Confederate masters or the military.
Grand Contraband Camp
The word spread quickly among southeastern Virginia's slave communities. While becoming a "contraband" did not mean full freedom, many slaves considered it a step in that direction. The day after Butler's decision, many more escaped slaves found their way to Fort Monroe and appealed to become contraband. As the number of former slaves grew too large to be housed inside the Fort, the contrabands erected housing outside the crowded base from the burned ruins of the City of HamptonHampton, Virginia
Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...
left behind by the Confederates. They called their new settlement Grand Contraband Camp
Grand Contraband Camp
Grand Contraband Camp was located in Elizabeth City County on the Virginia Peninsula near Fort Monroe 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, by defining them as...
(which they nicknamed "Slabtown"). By the end of the war in April 1865, less than four years later, an estimated 10,000 escaped slaves had applied to gain "contraband" status, with many living nearby. Across the South, Union forces managed more than 100 contraband camps, although not all were as large. From a camp on Roanoke Island that started in 1862, Horace James developed the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island (1863–1867). Appointed by the Union Army, James was a Congregational chaplain who tried to create a self-sustaining colony at the island.
Near Fort Monroe, but outside its protective walls, the pioneering teacher Mary S. Peake
Mary S. Peake
Mary Smith Peake, born Mary Smith Kelsey , was an American teacher and humanitarian, best known for starting a school for the children of former slaves starting in the fall of 1861 under what became known as the Emancipation Oak tree in present-day Hampton near Fort Monroe...
began to teach both adult and child contrabands to read and write. She was the first black teacher hired by the American Missionary Association
American Missionary Association
The American Missionary Association was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values...
, which sent numerous Northern teachers to the South to teach as well. This area of Elizabeth City County
Elizabeth City County, Virginia
Elizabeth City County was a county in southeastern Virginia from 1634 to 1952. Originally created in 1634 as Elizabeth River Shire, it was one of eight shires created in the Virginia Colony by order of the King of England. In 1636, it was subdivided, and the portion north of the harbor of Hampton...
later became part of the campus of Hampton University
Hampton University
Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:...
, a historically black college. Defying a Virginia law against educating slaves, she and other teachers held classes outdoors under a certain large oak tree. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
was read to the contrabands and free blacks there, for which the tree was named the Emancipation Oak
Emancipation Oak
Emancipation Oak is a historic tree located on the campus of Hampton University in what is now the City of Hampton, Virginia. The large sprawling oak is 98 feet in diameter, with branches which extend upward as well as laterally...
. For most of the contrabands, true emancipation
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
did not come until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
abolishing slavery was ratified in late 1865.
In modern times, the Contraband Historical Society was organized by the descendants of the contrabands, to honor and perpetuate their story. Authors such as Phyllis Haislip
Phyllis Haislip
Phyllis Haislip is an American author and historian. Her best-known work may be “Lottie’s Courage,” the story of a contraband slave growing up during the American Civil War....
have written fiction about the contraband slaves as well.
Contraband term first used by William Budd
General Butler's written statements and communications with the War Department requesting guidance on the issue of fugitive slaves did not use the term "contraband." As late as August 9, 1861 he used the term "slaves" for fugitive slaves who had come to Fort Monroe.On August 10, 1861, Acting Master William Budd of the gunboat USS Resolute
USS Resolute (1860)
The first USS Resolute was a steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.She was purchased by the Union Navy to be part of the fleet of ships stationed in coastal waterways to prevent blockade runners from entering or departing ports of the Confederacy...
first used the term in an official US military record. As early as 1812, the term, "contraband" was used to refer to illegally smuggled goods (including slaves).
Development
Contraband camps developed around many Union-held forts and encampments. In 1863, after the Emancipation ProclamationEmancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
, thousands of former slaves and free blacks began to enlist in the United States Colored Troops
United States Colored Troops
The United States Colored Troops were regiments of the United States Army during the American Civil War that were composed of African American soldiers. First recruited in 1863, by the end of the Civil War, the men of the 175 regiments of the USCT constituted approximately one-tenth of the Union...
when the black units were authorized. The Army allowed their families to take refuge at contraband camps. The black troops ultimately composed nearly 10 percent of all the troops in the Union Army.
By the end of the war, there were more than 100 contraband camps in the South. Many were assisted by missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
teachers recruited from the North by the American Missionary Association
American Missionary Association
The American Missionary Association was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values...
and other groups who, together with free blacks and former slaves, agreed that education of the former slaves was of the highest priority. The teachers often wrote about the desire of former slaves, both adults and children, for education.