Contraband (American Civil War)
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Contraband was the terminology used by Brigadier General Benjamin Butler, commander at Fort Monroe in southeastern Virginia, at the outset of the American Civil War to describe a new status for certain escaped slaves.
Three slaves, Frank Baker, James Townsend and Sheppard Mallory had been contracted by their owners to the Confederate Army 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.
The word spread quickly among southeastern Virginia's slave communities. While becoming a "contraband" did not equate to freedom, it was apparently seen by many slaves as at least a step in that direction. Beginning the very next day after Butler's decision, many more escaped slaves also found there way to Fort Monroe appealing to become contraband. As the numbers grew to quantities 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. The called their new settlement 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.
Near Fort Monroe, but outside its protective walls in Elizabeth City County, in an area which later became part of the campus of Hampton University, both adult and child contrabands were taught to read and write by pioneering teacher Mrs. Mary S. Peake and others. Defying a Virginia law against educating slaves, classes were held outdoors under a certain large oak tree. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's the 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.
In modern times, the Contraband Historical Society was organized by their descendents, to honor and perpetuate their story.
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