'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). E-mail Corneliussen@alumni.Duke.edu