Once upon a time, perhaps 1961, my mom donated $50 to our church. She'd been through a hard patch and the pastor guided her through it. It was a newly organized church, worshiping in an old farmhouse's largest room. The elders had to meet to decide what to do with her unexpected tithe.
They decided: let's make her gift the seed of a building fund to erect a new chapel! The collected efforts led to a modest building of painted cinderblock and simple pieces of colored glass. It still functions, and my parents' ashes are in a garden plot for members who decide to stay with their church forever.
This $50 story is the foundation of the church's destiny, just as three freedom-seekers sought and found their liberation amid political upheaval in 1861. Lucky for them that the fort's commander was a clever Boston Abolitionist lawyer. A few months later, Benjamin Butler's counterpart in Missouri, an Abolitionist most recently from San Francisco, would proclaim liberation for the enslaved in his military command, but this proved inconvenient for President Lincoln, who felt compelled to require John Fremont and his hotheaded wife, Jesse Benton Fremont, to rescind their ukase lest Border States secede. (So far as I have read, Jesse was the only allied woman who aggravated Lincoln to the extent that he sneered an insult at, despite that she was the favored daughter of one of his key allies in the US Senate.)
The Fremonts had only pomposity and righteous ardor; Lincoln reined in others who ran ahead of the stuttering Union march. Only Butler's clever and supremely sarcastic legal reasoning made fact of this specific trio's effort to find freedom: if, according to Virginia's own reasoning the enslaved were property, then, according to that logic, enemy property coming into Union army possession was considered "Contraband of War", and thus, he told the Virginia officer/enslaver asking for return of his property: F*CK OFF!! (Well, in my dreams, anyway.)
For that act alone, Butler deserves a Gold Medal in Masterful Legalistic Pettifogging, despite his inadequacies throughout his other assignments during the war.
Ben Butler did not win the Civil War, nor did he open the latch suppressing this legalistic peoples' progress towards emancipating its enslaved. At best, he partly emancipating the overlords' own effort to make inter-racial progress, or whatever anyone wants to call the delusional miasma that the USA walks through, April 1865 until now.
The North had many Abolitionists. Some became leaders on various fronts: Harriet Beecher Stowe ('Uncle Tom's Cabin'), John Brown, various ministers, some politicians. Serendipity played an oversized part; how could anyone foresee that Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln would become mutually respecting friends? Or that, as Steven points out, the very spot where enslavement infected this continent turned out to be the site where self-emancipation and pettifogging met to create the concept of "contraband". I hope this was a slow-working vaccine that may someday prevail over a most insidious cancer.
As our pastor, among many, said, "Let us pray" that it will become so.
I agree that excavation isn't the job of historians, perhaps their jobs are to point out to us where to dig. Today, $50 doesn't build a church, but if enough of us use our fifty bucks to join righteous agencies - SCLC, SPLC, ACLU, FfRF, or suddenly, even National Parks are under attack so join a 'friends' of your favorite national military parksite, we join armies of allied Americans who know how to fight effectively on their individual fronts.
Whenever Gen. Butler's name comes up, I chime in with some revisionism I'll eventually write a Substack post about. Along the lines of the memory-hole problem, I think that the general deserves a version of the credit he's usually assigned, but not the credit that he's often assigned. Even today, though it's not as bad as it was, he gets the dignity of being named while Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend have that simple decency of simple dignity excluded. The general is glorified as the creator of the "Contraband Decision." Well, it's true. He did decide. But what's ALSO true is that his was the second, reactive decision. The three men--acting with self-agency that was a potential in millions of others--made the first, ACTIVE decision. But because of the white saviorism that still pervades national memory of the political evolution of emancipation, the place of the Black men in that evolution, and the place of the Black enslaved generally, get scanted or outright overlooked. White saviorism overlaps with the systemic racism in the May 23 story.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
Thanks. It’s important to point out that there is no Fort Monroe National Park. There is a bizarrely split, severely limited, Fort Monroe National Monument. It was deftly contrived in 2011 by politicians to marginalize the voices of those of us—including the late Gerri Hollins—who had spent the previous six years working hard to get a substantial national park, an unsplit one, on the Fort Monroe shoreline. Also, it sounds like you might be interested in my recent series of posts about the contrabands at my Substack, The Self-Emancipator:
One other thing: Are you sure you want to refer to contrabands—who after all had escaped from slavery—as “enslaved men”? I hope you read the short post that I mentioned second just above. It’s great to see your enthusiasm for this important but under-recognized history.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
Once upon a time, perhaps 1961, my mom donated $50 to our church. She'd been through a hard patch and the pastor guided her through it. It was a newly organized church, worshiping in an old farmhouse's largest room. The elders had to meet to decide what to do with her unexpected tithe.
They decided: let's make her gift the seed of a building fund to erect a new chapel! The collected efforts led to a modest building of painted cinderblock and simple pieces of colored glass. It still functions, and my parents' ashes are in a garden plot for members who decide to stay with their church forever.
This $50 story is the foundation of the church's destiny, just as three freedom-seekers sought and found their liberation amid political upheaval in 1861. Lucky for them that the fort's commander was a clever Boston Abolitionist lawyer. A few months later, Benjamin Butler's counterpart in Missouri, an Abolitionist most recently from San Francisco, would proclaim liberation for the enslaved in his military command, but this proved inconvenient for President Lincoln, who felt compelled to require John Fremont and his hotheaded wife, Jesse Benton Fremont, to rescind their ukase lest Border States secede. (So far as I have read, Jesse was the only allied woman who aggravated Lincoln to the extent that he sneered an insult at, despite that she was the favored daughter of one of his key allies in the US Senate.)
The Fremonts had only pomposity and righteous ardor; Lincoln reined in others who ran ahead of the stuttering Union march. Only Butler's clever and supremely sarcastic legal reasoning made fact of this specific trio's effort to find freedom: if, according to Virginia's own reasoning the enslaved were property, then, according to that logic, enemy property coming into Union army possession was considered "Contraband of War", and thus, he told the Virginia officer/enslaver asking for return of his property: F*CK OFF!! (Well, in my dreams, anyway.)
For that act alone, Butler deserves a Gold Medal in Masterful Legalistic Pettifogging, despite his inadequacies throughout his other assignments during the war.
Ben Butler did not win the Civil War, nor did he open the latch suppressing this legalistic peoples' progress towards emancipating its enslaved. At best, he partly emancipating the overlords' own effort to make inter-racial progress, or whatever anyone wants to call the delusional miasma that the USA walks through, April 1865 until now.
The North had many Abolitionists. Some became leaders on various fronts: Harriet Beecher Stowe ('Uncle Tom's Cabin'), John Brown, various ministers, some politicians. Serendipity played an oversized part; how could anyone foresee that Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln would become mutually respecting friends? Or that, as Steven points out, the very spot where enslavement infected this continent turned out to be the site where self-emancipation and pettifogging met to create the concept of "contraband". I hope this was a slow-working vaccine that may someday prevail over a most insidious cancer.
As our pastor, among many, said, "Let us pray" that it will become so.
I agree that excavation isn't the job of historians, perhaps their jobs are to point out to us where to dig. Today, $50 doesn't build a church, but if enough of us use our fifty bucks to join righteous agencies - SCLC, SPLC, ACLU, FfRF, or suddenly, even National Parks are under attack so join a 'friends' of your favorite national military parksite, we join armies of allied Americans who know how to fight effectively on their individual fronts.
Thanks for a nice story.
Whenever Gen. Butler's name comes up, I chime in with some revisionism I'll eventually write a Substack post about. Along the lines of the memory-hole problem, I think that the general deserves a version of the credit he's usually assigned, but not the credit that he's often assigned. Even today, though it's not as bad as it was, he gets the dignity of being named while Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend have that simple decency of simple dignity excluded. The general is glorified as the creator of the "Contraband Decision." Well, it's true. He did decide. But what's ALSO true is that his was the second, reactive decision. The three men--acting with self-agency that was a potential in millions of others--made the first, ACTIVE decision. But because of the white saviorism that still pervades national memory of the political evolution of emancipation, the place of the Black men in that evolution, and the place of the Black enslaved generally, get scanted or outright overlooked. White saviorism overlaps with the systemic racism in the May 23 story.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
Www.fortmonroe.org
We have the Contraband Historical Society, which was started by Gerry Hollins, one of the Contraband's ancestors here in Hampton.
Thanks. It’s important to point out that there is no Fort Monroe National Park. There is a bizarrely split, severely limited, Fort Monroe National Monument. It was deftly contrived in 2011 by politicians to marginalize the voices of those of us—including the late Gerri Hollins—who had spent the previous six years working hard to get a substantial national park, an unsplit one, on the Fort Monroe shoreline. Also, it sounds like you might be interested in my recent series of posts about the contrabands at my Substack, The Self-Emancipator:
https://selfemancipator.substack.com/p/pbs-little-known-story
You also might want to see this brief post:
https://selfemancipator.substack.com/p/why-the-self-emancipator
One other thing: Are you sure you want to refer to contrabands—who after all had escaped from slavery—as “enslaved men”? I hope you read the short post that I mentioned second just above. It’s great to see your enthusiasm for this important but under-recognized history.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
Www.fortmonroe.org
We have the Contraband Historical Society, which was started by Gerry Hollins, one of the Contrabandz ancestors here in Hampton.
As a Visitor Information Specialist for the City of Hampton, Virginia, I invite you to visit Fort Monroe National Park! Here at the Ft. Monroe Visitor and Education Center you will experience our displays and exhibits on the importance of keeping the true history behind the Contraband enslaved men.
Www.fortmonroe.org
We have the Contraband Historical Society, which was started by Gerry Hollins, one of the Contrabandz ancestors here in Hampton.