Emancipation Oak

Emancipation Oak. Formerly Enslaved Eager for Education. In January 1863, here under an oak tree, newly freed African American students listened as the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud. Union Gen. Benjamin Butler's "contraband of war" decision at Fort Monroe in 1861 anticipated that day, enabling hundreds of enslaved African Americans to reach freedom in the Union lines., Prewar slave codes had forbidden the enslaved from being educated, but the increasing number of refugees camped here prompted the establishment of schools, which the newly freed eagerly attended., Mary Peake, a free-born African American, had boldly disregarded prewar laws and taught enslaved people how to read in her home near the Hampton Academy. Peake's house was destroyed when Hampton was burned on August 7, 1861, but she continued teaching in an abandoned cottage next to the Chesapeake Baptist Female Seminary., Peake's 1862 death from tuberculosis ended her outstanding work, but by then there were other educational opportunities for the freedpeople. The American Missionary Association, a New-York-based Christian philanthropic society, sent Rev. Lewis Lockwood here in September 1861. He noted that the "parents and children are delighted with the idea of learning to read." The association established two schools here., Additional schools were created at Fort Monroe, Camp Hamilton, and the burned-out Hampton courthouse, which missionaries and freedpeople renovated together., (captions) , Mary Peake Courtesy Hampton University Museum, "Contrabands escaping," May 29, 1864, by Edwin Forbes. Many thousands of enslaved people emancipated themselves by fleeing to Union lines after Butler's "contraband of war" decision became Federal policy. Courtesy Library of Congress, Union Generals Establish Schools , In 1863, General Benjamin Butler used government funds to construct a school that accommodated 600 students. Known as the Butler School, the frame building was constructed in the shape of a Greek cross next to the Emancipation Oak. In 1868, Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute adjacent to the Butler School., The Butler School - Courtesy Timothy L. Smith