Editing Forty acres and a mule (section)

===Grand Contraband Camp===
After secession, the Union maintained its control over [[Fort Monroe]] in [[Hampton, Virginia|Hampton]] on the coast of Southern Virginia. Escaped slaves rushed to the area, hoping for protection from the Confederate Army. (Even more quickly, the town's white residents [[white flight|fled]] to Richmond.)<ref>{{harvnb|Bonekemper|1970|p=169}}</ref> General [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin Butler]] set a precedent for Union forces on May 24, 1861, when he refused to surrender escaped slaves to Confederates claiming ownership. Butler declared the slaves [[Contraband (American Civil War)|contraband]] of war and allowed them to remain with the Union Army.<ref>{{harvnb|Jackson|1925|p=133}}. "Nevertheless, shady though some of his tactics may have been in the opinion of some, Butler is to be rated as famous for the stand he took on that morning of the twenty-fourth of May when he declared that the escaped slave who stood before him should not be returned to his master but that he and all others who so came were to be regarded as contraband of war. From this time forward all escaped and abandoned slaves in the South were frequently known as 'contrabands.'"</ref> By July 1861, there were 300 "contraband" slaves working for rations at Fort Monroe. By the end of July there were 900, and General Butler appointed [[Edward L. Pierce]] as Commissioner of Negro Affairs.<ref name=Bonekemper170>{{harvnb|Bonekemper|1970|p=170}}</ref>

Confederate raiders under General [[John B. Magruder]] burnt the nearby town of [[Hampton, Virginia]] on August 7, 1861, but the "contraband" blacks occupied its ruins.<ref name=Bonekemper170 /> They established a shantytown known as the [[Grand Contraband Camp]]. Many worked for the Army at a rate of $10.00/month, but these wages were not sufficient for them to make major improvements in housing. Conditions in the Camp grew worse, and Northern humanitarian groups sought to intervene on behalf of its 64,000 residents.<ref name=Bonekemper171b>{{harvnb|Bonekemper|1970|p=171}}. "Nevertheless, the housing situation was so desperate that complaints emanated from the Reverend Lockwood, the A.M.A. and the just-organized National Freedmen's Relief Association and led to investigation by the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, appointment of Captain C. B. Wilder of Boston to protect the blacks' interests and the construction of large buildings in which the Negroes could live."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Jackson|1925|p=135}}</ref> Captain C. B. Wilder was appointed to organize a response.<ref name=Bonekemper171b /> The perceived humanitarian crisis may have hastened Lincoln's plans for colonizing [[Île-à-Vache]].<ref>{{harvnb|Boyd|1959|p=49}} "The distress of the six thousand Negroes at Fort Monroe, Virginia, may have influenced Lincoln to proceed despite the Senator's misgivings. A report by Quakers in December, 1862, described the refugees quartered in small rooms, sometimes containing ten to twelve persons each, with insufficient fuel and clothing to keep warm throughout the winter month."</ref>

A plan developed in September 1862 would have relocated refugees en masse to Massachusetts and other northern states.<ref>{{harvnb|Voegeli|2003|p=767}}</ref> This plan—initiated by [[John Adams Dix|John A. Dix]] and supported by Captain Wilder and Secretary of War Stanton—drew negative reactions from Republicans who wanted to avoid connecting northward black migration with the newly announced [[Emancipation Proclamation]].<ref>{{harvnb|Voegeli|2003|p=769}}</ref> Fear of competition by black workers, as well as generalized racial prejudice, made the prospect of black refugees unpalatable for Massachusetts politicians.<ref>{{harvnb|Voegeli|2003|pp=776–777}}</ref>

With support from orders from General [[Rufus Saxton]], General Butler and Captain Wilder pursued local resettlement operations, providing many of the blacks in Hampton with two acres of land and tools with which to work.<ref name=Bonekemper171>{{harvnb|Bonekemper|1970|pp=171–172}}</ref> Others were assigned jobs as servants in the North.<ref>{{harvnb|Engs|1979|pp=38–39}}</ref> Various smaller camps and colonies were formed, including the [[Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island]]. Hampton was well known as one of the War's first and biggest refugee camps, and served as a sort of model for other settlements.<ref>{{harvnb|Engs|1979|pp=3–4, 25}}. "During the Civil War, the groups which would shape the post-bellum life of black Hampton came together for the first time. Over that same period, the issues that would inform black and white approaches to freedom, in Hampton and in the South as a whole, crystallized. [...] In these unstable circumstances, Northern whites and Southern blacks had their first large-scale encounter of the war."</ref>