"Experiments in Freedom," co-produced by the DC History Center in partnership with the African American Civil War Museum, is an installment in the DC History Center’s Context for Today series of online conversations with thoughtful and thought-provoking historians, activists, journalists, and community members.
Following years of activism led by local Washingtonians including Loretta Carter Hanes, the District of Columbia declared Emancipation Day a legal holiday in 2005. Each year, April 16th celebrations officially commemorate the sole example of federally compensated emancipation in the United States, but to many, compensated emancipation is either unknown or not fully understood. This legislation in 1862 freed nearly 3,200 Washingtonians, while paying their enslavers for their release. It is unique to Washington, DC, and explored in retrospect, 160 years later, it provides an opportunity to question the meaning of freedom and justice as well as the changing values of Washingtonians.
How is this complicated history explored in DC classrooms today? What can we learn about the specific enslavers and those freed by the Act? How is this commemoration of a Civil War-era experiment in freedom inextricably linked to the current fight for DC statehood?
DC educator William Jones, historian and Emancipation Day activist CR Gibbs, and family history researcher Stephen Hammond join moderator Amara Evering to examine compensated emancipation's complicated legacy and contemporary relevance.
CR Gibbs is a historian, author of six books, and a frequent national and international lecturer on an array of historical topics. Appearing often on the History Channel and international television, Gibbs also has local prominence, featured by the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Museum and serving as a DC Humanities Council scholar. Winner of innumerable awards, Gibbs has been recognized by the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust, and the Washington Informer newspaper.
Stephen Hammond researches family histories. A former earth scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey, genealogy has been Steve’s hobby for longer than his 40 year professional career. His goals are to educate and inspire others to document their own family history. He works with a variety of local and national sites, including Arlington House, Decatur House, Mount Vernon, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. An elected officer for the James Dent Walker Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Steve was named a Virginia Humanities Scholar for his work in exploring African-American life and achievement. Last year, Steve and several of his Syphax cousins began a campaign to change the name of the Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial.
William Jones is an educator, historian, Afrofuturist, lecturer, and author (The Ex-Con, Voodoo Priest, Goddess, and the African King). He has over 20 years of teaching experience at every level. His primary focus is history with an emphasis on the history of African people in America and the world. He is the president and founder of the Afrofuturism Network. William has lectured across the United States, as well as abroad, and has been featured on several radio programs and podcasts. He holds a BA in History from Tuskegee University and a MA in African American Studies from Clark Atlanta University.
Amara Evering is a Radio journalist, writer, and native Washingtonian. She works as a producer and writer at the awarded radio station, WPFW FM and is a current fellow at SIT International. She’s been recognized for her coverage of reparations programs, Black international struggles, and the experiences of Black women and girls. She interviewed legendary poet Sonia Sanchez along with a host of prominent activists and scholars. Her writing about gentrification was featured in The Contemporary magazine, among other publications. She studied Creative Writing and Sociology at Emory University and was a mentee of acclaimed journalist, Askia Muhammad.
This timeline indicates a few examples of the abolition of slavery around the world, with a focus on the evolution in Washington, DC. For a more comprehensive overview, see "Chronology of prohibitions of the slave trade and abolitions of slavery" in UNESCO Slave Route Project Legacies of Slavery: A Resource Book for Managers of Sites and Itineraries of Memory.
1777-Vermont incorporates the abolition of slavery into its constitution.
1808-The United State bans the transatlantic slave trade.
1822-Abolition of slavery in Santo Domingo by Haitian President Boyer. The American Colonization Society founds a colony on the west coast of Africa. [This would become the nation of Liberia in 1847]
1834-The British Imperial Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 ends slavery in the British colonies as of August 1, 1834 and fuels abolition movements worldwide. [Canada celebrates Emancipation Day on August 1]
1850-The slave trade outlawed in Washington, DC through the Compromise of 1850. However, enslaved people are not freed at this point.
1861-U.S. Civil War begins after decades of conflict over slavery's expansion, and the failure of U.S. politicians to find a middle ground, most southern states leave the Union. Organized as the Confederate States of America, they attack Union forts in the South. Union declares war to restore the nation. Because the Confederacy's enslaved people were key to their power, and the nation's Black population and abolitionists demand abolition on moral grounds, the Union adds abolition as a goal of the war.
1862-On April 16, 1862 President Lincoln signs the Compensated Emancipation Act (formally, An Act for the Release of certain Persons held to Service or Labor within the District of Columbia, 37th Cong., Sess. 2, ch. 54, 12 Stat. 376), which immediately frees enslaved people in the District of Columbia. The act also allowed enslavers to petition the government to be paid for the release of enslaved people as well as now-freed people to petition for funds if they decided to emigrate (leave the United States).
1862-On July 12, 1862, Congress passes a supplemental bill to the original DC Emancipation Act which covered another type of claim, allowing enslaved people whose enslavers had not filed for compensation to do so.
1863-On January 1, 1863, during the third year of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declares freedom for enslaved persons in states that seceded from the United States only, and excludes loyal border states. The Proclamation also allows for the recruitment of former slaves into the paid service of the United States armed forces.
1864-On November 1, 1864, a referendum on a new state constitution abolishing slavery in Maryland narrowly passes to free enslaved people in the state.
1865-Federal troops arrive in Galveston, Texas on June 19th to ensure all enslaved people will be freed. This is two and a half years after the the Emancipation Proclamation, which indeed applied to the nearly quarter of a millions enslaved people living in Texas.
1865-The 13th Amendment is ratified, declaring “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
On July 16, 2020, the DC History Center presented “Is Statehood Possible?” an online conversation between historian George Derek Musgrove and journalist Bob Levey on the history of statehood and its current prospects.
On May 5, 2021, Washington History magazine Editorial Board member Chris Myers Asch joined the authors of the forthcoming "Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC" Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green for a conversation about the Pointer family’s legacy. The authors were joined by James Fisher and Tanya Gaskins Hardy, who co-authored the forward for "Between Freedom and Equality."
From an enslaved African American purchasing his freedom to a 20th-century eminent domain land seizure, "Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC" is a dramatic story of freedom amid slavery and its aftermath. Authors Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green trace six generations in one Washington family, beginning with Capt. George Pointer, a Maryland man born enslaved in 1773 who purchased his freedom 20 years later while working for George Washington's Potomac Company. The land in Northwest DC where four generations of Pointer’s descendants later farmed was briefly engulfed by the Civil War and then seized by eminent domain for the expanding suburb of Chevy Chase, DC—specifically, to build Lafayette Elementary School for white children. Today efforts are underway in Chevy Chase to reckon with this history and further awareness of the legacy of George Pointer and his descendants. Torrey and Green’s thorough research and stirring narrative provide unique insight across two centuries of DC history.
On November 18, 2021, Kate Masur discussed her recent book "Until Justice Be Done" with historian C.R. Gibbs. In this virtual Washington History Presents book talk, Masur and Gibbs discuss how African American resistance to restrictive laws in “free states” led to the eventual implementation of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. The speakers discuss how Masur came to this subject; debates over freedom and restrictive, racist laws in the upper midwest; as well as how Washington, DC served as a unique but pivotal case study. Masur, in particular, outlines the case of Gilbert Horton in DC, as an example for how the civil rights movement gained momentum in the north.
On June 16, 2021, the DC History Center invited long-time DC statehood activists Anise Jenkins and Samuel Jordan to join Ty Hobson-Powell, a young activist, to discuss the movement for DC statehood: its roots, new and continuing stakes, and how statehood activism is adapting to the current political climate. Cosby Hunt, local history teacher and director of programming for the Center for Inspired Teaching joined the discussion as moderator.
African North American Heritage News is a periodic e-news digest for educators, historians, researchers, and others in the USA and Canada interested in African American Heritage and/or African Canadian Heritage featured livestreams/webvideos/news/
"Loretta Carter Hanes," by Katrina Ingraham DC History Center blog post, 2021
Washington History is the only scholarly publication devoted exclusively to the history of our nation’s capital. First published in 1989, the magazine replaced the Records of the Columbia Historical Society (1897-1989). Washington History is filled with scholarly articles edited for the general reader. It is written and edited by distinguished historians and journalists, offering a rich array of images as well as reviews and short features. The following articles support study of the issue of Compensated Emancipation.
“Teachable Moment: The Winding Path to Freedom under the District of Columbia Emancipation Act of April 16, 1862,” by Joseph P. Reidy
Washington History Vol. 26 No. 2, 2014.
""Some Satisfactory Way": Lincoln and Black Freedom in the District of Columbia," by Edna Greene Medford
Washington History Vol. 21, 2009.
""I held George Washington's Horse: Compensated Emancipation in the District of Columbia," by Mary Mitchell
Washington History Vol 63/65, 1963/1965.
"Loretta Carter Hanes, 1926–2016," by George Derek Musgrove
Washington History Vol. 29, no. 1, 2017.
The Teaching Civil War Washington libguide provides educators with resources and tools to support the teaching of Civil War Washington in their classrooms. Topics include the unique-to-DC Compensated Emancipation Act. Featured resources include objects from the collection, Washington History magazine articles, and additional primary and secondary resources
The D.C. Declaration of Learning is a DC History Center partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms, the White House Historical Association , DC Public Library, and DC Public Schools. This exciting opportunity expands the reach of the DC History Center by bringing collections that tell local stories into classrooms, through lesson plans and civic engagement projects spearheaded by local educators. The objects from the DC History Center most explicitly support study of compensated emancipation, DC home rule, the fight for DC statehood, transportation developments, neighborhood politics, urban renewal, and the DC public school system.
This guides includes information about manuscript collections and government records and published indexes that provide detailed information about people who were enslaved and/or emancipated in DC.
Help us keep the DC History Center's guide up-to-date. Send additional resources and/or edits to library@dchistory.org. We appreciate your efforts and contributions!
