Opening A New Path to Emancipation

My debut novel, The Better Angels, centers on the plight of 10,000 former slaves on the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Civil War. Abandoned by their plantation owners in 1861 after the Union’s occupation, the slaves became contrabands of war: neither slave nor free. President Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase realized the Union needed to aid this abandoned populace. The government solicited the help of volunteer missionaries, abolitionists, and teachers to travel to South Carolina in the spring of 1862.

And where did this term contraband of war originate? It was first used by Union General Benjamin Butler in May 1861 at Fort Monroe, Virginia, when three slaves, Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend, sought refuge from their owner at the Fort. General Butler refused to return the slaves, as he considered them confiscated property from the enemy.  Virginia had seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861.  General Butler was no abolitionist; his decision was a purely military one. He regarded the slaves as property confiscated from the enemy and thus it was his duty to prevent said property from aiding the Confederate military. By crossing Union lines, the three former slaves were now effectively the property of the Federal Government.

General Butler’s direct contradiction of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had greater significance and consequences than expected and became known as the “Contraband Decision.” The contraband status of thousands of former slaves has been overlooked in historical narratives, but it inadvertently opened a new pathway to freedom for them.

Robin Holloway is the author of The Better Angels, published by Holand Press.