Douglas Deal wrote:
> I guess it comes down to what you see
> as important. At Fortress Monroe in the
> summer of 1861, we see the beginning
> of the final, drawn out phase of the abolition
> of slavery in the United States. Slaves on the
> Peninsula had begun making their way to
> Union Army lines (at the Fortress). The
> commander there, Gen. Benjamin Butler,
> initiated a policy of retaining these slaves
> (i.e., refusing to return them to their disloyal
> masters) and terming them "contraband of
> war"--a policy that was approved by Secretary
> of War Cameron and by the US Congress and
> President Lincoln with the passage and signing
> of the First Confiscation Act. For the slaves, it
> was a dramatic step toward self-emancipation,
> made all the more poignant by its location--almost
> exactly where the first cargo of captive Africans
> in Virginia had disembarked in 1619.

Thanks, Professor Deal. That ship carrying Africans -- I myself like your
humanizing phrase "captive Africans," but won't refer to them as "cargo"
-- to Jamestown in 1619 did indeed stop first at what's now called Old
Point Comfort, a site that has been fortified for most of the time since
Jamestown was first settled, and that became Fort Monroe in the nineteenth
century when the moated stone fortress was built there, in large part by
enslaved people, and with contributions from Lt. Robert E. Lee. And yes,
nearly a quarter of a millennium later, the self-emancipators Frank Baker,
Sheppard Mallory, and James Townsend did indeed escape from enslavement
and seek sanctuary there, from a general. A short, and to my mind
beautiful, original research essay about that -- "We should tell the
full-circle story of slavery at Old Point Comfort" -- appears below in
this message. (And I do have copyright permission to circulate both that
and the second very brief piece that appears below.)

Also, as I've said in this forum and elsewhere, it seems to me important
to rise above what is essentially an unconsciously white supremacist way
of telling the story of the Fort Monroe Contrabands. I believe that our
doing so sooner or later is inevitable, and will be a wonderful example of
constructive revisionism -- improved understanding of what the historical
facts most clearly mean.

The unconsciously white-supremacist way of telling the Fort Monroe
Contrabands' story is usually signaled by giving primacy, and the dignity
of being named, to white officials instead of to the three Americans --
they were no longer "slaves" in any sense that matters when these events
took place -- whose bravery, initiative, and natural love of freedom
started the cascade of self-emancipation that began at Fort Monroe and
spread across the South.

Yes, General Butler's decision was necessary, and also clever and
constructive. But General Butler only takes primacy in the telling of the
story if the story recycles the language and logic, such as it was, of the
slavery era by presuming black inferiority -- that is, if the story
presumes
* that the self-emancipators were not in fact
  self-emancipators, but were instead merely
  feckless, helpless, passive victims waiting
  for white officials to deign, belatedly, to
  confer human rights that were known then
  and are known now to be required by natural
  law,
* that the natural state of black people was "slave,"
  so much so that we still refer to any formerly
  enslaved American as a slave even concerning
  times when she or he no longer was one (in any
  sense that matters), and
* that it's legitimate to refer to these Americans'
  oppressors as "rightful owners" and "masters" --
  terms still used today, even though they're not
  necessary to convey the facts, and even though
  their connotations must certainly influence
  the very understanding that I'm predicting will
  gradually be constructively revised.

Below are, first, Scott Butler's brief research essay about the
full-circle story of the slavery era at Old Point Comfort, and second, an
op-ed that I published two years ago about the importance in the present,
and in the future, of the Fort Monroe Contraband story:

We should tell the full-circle story of slavery at Old Point Comfort
October 27, 2007
Scott Butler
Newport News Daily Press

The Web site for the U.S. National Slavery Museum, which will be built
near Fredericksburg, makes a persuasive argument for the existence of such
a museum in Virginia. Among other points, it notes that enslaved
Virginians "grew most of the tobacco that helped to finance American
independence," and that four of the first five U.S. presidents were
slave-holding Virginians. As for the Fredericksburg location, it refers to
the proximity to Washington and quotes The Washington Post's observation
that the museum will be "a short drive from where slaves first entered
this country."

That historic place of first entry is Old Point Comfort. In 1619, a Dutch
ship landed there and traded 20 Angolan Africans to the English
authorities for food. But Old Point Comfort is also the place where
slavery began to die. In 1861, the commander of Fort Monroe granted the
request of three escaped slaves for sanctuary, and word of the event led
thousands to join them, creating the first Union-protected enclave of
black freedom in the South.

Moreover, this turning point occurred at a U.S. fort built partly by the
labor of slaves — almost 600 of them in the period from 1820 to 1822,
according to records discovered by Hampton historian Joan Charles. In a
double irony, these workers were denied the democratic freedoms they
helped to protect, but their grandchildren would call their handiwork "the
freedom fort."

The history of Old Point Comfort, in other words, encapsulates the entire
history of American slavery. The strands of that story — the growth of
slavery and the repressive legal codes controlling it, the actions of
abolitionists, and the many-faceted resistance of African-Americans — not
only go back to the 1619 purchase of human beings at Old Point Comfort;
they also reach their culmination in the same place.

When the Union commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler allowed Frank Baker,
Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend to remain at Fort Monroe, on the
grounds that they were "contraband of war," he acted not so much in
accordance with abolitionist principle as in a way that made its
application possible. He invented a morally indefensible category, as he
himself seemed to recognize, that was nevertheless distinguishable from
slavery, and that was the inspiration for the Confiscation Acts, the first
legal steps on the road to the Thirteenth Amendment. And in rejecting
their owner's demand that he comply with the Fugitive Slave Law and return
the men, he also invalidated the last of the many laws that had defined
the American acceptance of slavery.

When Baker, Mallory and Townsend asked for sanctuary at Fort Monroe, they
acted in a spirit of resistance and hope that had always characterized
enslaved Americans. Slaves had bought their liberty when this was possible
and purchased loved ones they couldn't free, sought out opportunities to
educate themselves, fought on both sides in the Revolutionary War for the
promise of freedom, escaped to the North and to Canada and Mexico, set up
isolated communities of runaways in the South, joined Native American
tribes, and planned and sometimes succeeded in carrying out violent
rebellions against slaveholders. They had also fought against subjugation
and degradation by creating their own culture, one element of which was
the sublime art form known as the spiritual. It was from the "contrabands"
gathered at Fort Monroe and in Confederate-burned Hampton that Northern
missionaries collected some of the first spirituals for publication,
including "Let My People Go."

Although the tragic but ultimately inspiring story of American slavery
will be told at the National Slavery Museum, it must also be told at Old
Point Comfort, where it was lived. And its telling there must be entrusted
to the entity that can give it the maximum respect and the highest
visibility. That entity, in my view, is neither the city of Hampton nor
the commonwealth of Virginia. After the Army leaves Fort Monroe in 2011,
Old Point Comfort should become a national park.

Butler, a member of Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, resides in
Newport News.

'Contraband' history story important for future
Steven T. Corneliussen
Daily Press
2 Dec. 2006
(As submitted; the as-printed version is slightly different.)

Discussion of Fort Monroe’s post-Army future has scanted a hard-nosed bean
counter’s business question. It’s also a history question, but it bears
crucially on the post’s potential profitability as a heritage tourism
attraction.

Why is Fort Monroe’s Contraband story important?

In my view, if we see the answer clearly, we’ll not only enrich our
understanding of the past, but boost our financial ability to illuminate
that past.

Seeing the answer clearly will help Fort Monroe become self-sustaining as
a regional-prosperity-enhancing place not only for illuminating history,
but also for preserving historic residences and buildings by using them,
and for expanding public access to beaches and green space.

At present, left-over slave-era language usually clouds the story. The
usual version goes like this:

Early in the Civil War, three slaves sought sanctuary at Fort Monroe.
Their rightful owners demanded their return, citing federal law.

General Benjamin Franklin Butler refused, saying the law benefited only
slaveholders loyal to the Union. Under the law of war, he declared the
contested human property contraband to be confiscated.

Later, General Butler accepted thousands more. They came to be called
Contraband Slaves.

Nice story, if you buy slave-era logic. Here’s a more accurate version
that, if told well, could help Fort Monroe turn the Historic Triangle of
Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown into the Historic Rectangle:

Early in the Civil War, Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend
stood up and -- at substantial personal risk -- threw off slavery. They
asked for sanctuary from Fort Monroe’s commanding general.

In taking that action, these men staked a claim. They didn’t stake it
under the laws of war, and certainly not under America’s perverted,
slave-era federal law.

In effect, they staked a simple Jeffersonian claim under the laws of
Nature and of Nature’s God. They simply claimed to be Americans.

They were right, and they succeeded -- even if the general accepted them
for reasons calling to mind not Thomas Jefferson the author of the
Declaration of Independence, but Thomas Jefferson the slaveholder.

They were right, and thousands followed. These resourceful, enterprising
Americans soon began transforming Hampton into what University of
Pennsylvania historian Robert F. Engs calls a unique Reconstruction
community.

They were right, and we should celebrate them not as Contraband Slaves,
but as Contrabands.

Some will call this view politically correct revisionism. They’ll say it’s
"presentism" that shallowly ignores enormous dissimilarities between 1861
and 2006. They’ll note that the Union army often treated Contrabands
almost as slaves. For those critics, three questions:

If you had to choose just one word to name Baker, Mallory and Townsend at
the moment they stood up, were they slaves, or were they men?

Thousands followed those three in a mass freedom enterprise that, Engs
says, transformed our civil war into a war for freedom. Were those
thousands slaves, or were they Americans?

In 2006, nobody still believes that women burned at the stake were
witches. So why should we still credit grotesque ideas about human beings
as property?

We should still portray slavery, though. Colonial Williamsburg has been
trying to present it accurately. For them that’s hard, because even in the
least-bad instances, it means portraying victims.

But just look at the story Fort Monroe can tell. Baker, Mallory, Townsend
and thousands more weren’t victims. They stood up. They were Americans.

At post-Army Fort Monroe, people are going to arrive from across the
country and around the world to celebrate that.

Meanwhile, you can celebrate it too. Please consult CFMNP.org about the
public forum this Saturday from 1 to 4 at the Hampton History Museum,
featuring Engs and other distinguished historians.

Corneliussen is a vice president of Citizens for a Fort Monroe National
Park (CFMNP.org).

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html