Today , September 18 , marks the anniversary of one of the most ill-famed laws in United States account : the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 . The law , which obligated U.S. citizens to twist in suspect runaway slaves even if they know in free State , was intended to pacify pro - slavery state and deter them from leave the Union .
The Fugitive Slave Act did n’t save the area from descending into war with itself , of course . What it did accomplish was a decade - long sovereignty of terror . deny the right to a panel trial , accused romp — including free Black who ’d never been enslaved — were helpless to hold themselves against their accusers ’ claim .
The demise of the jurisprudence set out not with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , however , but at the kickoff of the Civil War . An archaeologic archeological site in Hampton , Va. late shed new light on a little - hump event that helped come together this chilling chapter of American history .
unwritten tradition and historical documents indicated that farming in business district Hampton had been a resort for escaped slaves during the Civil War . But no archaeological work had ever been tackle on the site , which most of late housed an apartment coordination compound ( it was demolish in 2012 ) .
Last year , the City of Hampton funded a preliminary dig . It did n’t take long for the archaeologists to unveil a treasure trove : old fencing lines , remnants of trash pits , and evidence of pit root cellar implant in a deep stratum of Lucius Clay .
“ There were literally piles and C of those things , ” says Matt Laird , a partner and senior research worker at theJames River Institute for Archaeology , which perform the archeological site . “ There was evidence of garbage pits that looked like they were satisfy with artifacts from that fourth dimension geological period . ”
artefact excavate from the site . Image credit : courtesy of The James River Institute for Archaeology
So what did this site have to do with the dying of the Fugitive Slave Act ? In the first weeks of the war , three enslaved homo took a desperate , dangerous chanceon exemption by request sanctuary at Fort Monroe , a Union fortification , even though force were still obligated to uphold the Fugitive Slave Act .
General Benjamin Butler , Fort Monroe ’s commander and a former lawyer , was sympathetic to the men ’s quandary . He come up with a cagey circumvention to the law by declaring the escaped hard worker “ bootleg ” that might be used to support the rebel cause , in effect create a path to insane asylum .
Word soon spread , and Fort Monroe welcome one C of striver seeking protection under the new contraband policy . Thousands ultimately settled in nearby field and bite - out Hampton homes as white residents fled and band together force , fear a Union takeover , torched the townsfolk . The site buried beneath the now - demolished apartment coordination compound is believed part of what came to be known as theGrand Contraband Camp .
An 1864 image of the Grand Contraband Camp . Image Credit : Library of Congress
Today , the remnants of the encampment supply a coup d’oeil at the historic bit when the Fugitive Slave Act start to pall and one of the first free African - American community in the South get up up in its place .
“ It ’s captivating to see this in a southerly fastness , right in the midriff of Confederacy , " Laird enjoin . " You have black neck of the woods with street names like Liberty and Union . "
The camp was case law - mount . before long , escaped slave established similar bivouac throughout the South under the protection of Union flock . None were as extensive as the original , and most were temporary . By contrast , the Grand Contraband Camp acquire into a palmy community that helped rebuild the city after the war .
Laird would love to sieve through the trash pit and depart patch together a picture of daily life for camp residents who eked out a sustenance from virtually nothing . But the city of Hampton only fund a preliminary digging of the site — just enough data to pique the oddity of archeologist and residents , some of whom are descendants of the Grand Contraband settlers .
Laird hopes the city can find funding to continue , but experience the site could be sell to a developer . He notice that Hampton will mark its four-hundredth anniversary in 2019 , around the same time Virginia ’s first slaves get in in Hampton . He ’d like the site to be part of that commemoration .
“ Here ’s the exercise of slavery being introduced to Virginia at the very beginning , then you have the Contraband Camp at the close of slavery , and one of the first free bleak community of interests , ” he says . “ To abide by that would be interesting . ”
