Establishment of Settlements for Butler’s ‘Contraband’ Negroes

(Abolition)

A Bill to Provide for Occupation and Cultivation of the Cotton and Other Lands in Possesion of the United States Lying along the Southernn Coast of the United States States

8pp. 4to, Washington, D.C.: 37th Congress, 2nd Session. S201. In The Senate of the United States, February 14th, 1862].

"Exercise of the war powers to abolish slavery was initiated by General Benjamin Butler, May 24th, 1861, less than three month after Lincoln's inauguration, when he refused to surrender fugitives coming within lines. They were, he said, contraband of war. On July 30 he took a second step, as did General Fremont in Missouri, Butler reported to Secretary of War Cameron that he had fugitive slaves to the number of 300 men, 175 women, 225 children under the age of ten years of age and 175 children between the age of ten and eighteen years of age. His judgement was that having been abandoned by the owners, they were in the statue of free persons." [Dumond, Anti-Slavery, p. 370] Some of these slaves, and others to follow were settled on the islands off the Carolinas, where schools were established and teachers brought in from the North and Midwest. This Senate bill is the beginning of the African American settlement of those Islands, which today include Hilton Head, etc. The bill makes provisions for "receives and guardians," and indicates that employment and food shall be provided for both those who can work and those who cannot. Supplies, wages, etc. are mentioned. Today, many inhabitants of the coastal islands of the Carolinas are direct descendants of these first "Contraband" freeman Dumond, Anti-Slavery, p. 370.

Item #13492       Price: $250.00