Grand Contraband Camp

Grand Contraband Camp was located in Elizabeth City County on the Virginia Peninsula near Fort Monroe during and immediately after the American Civil War. The area was a refuge for escaped slaves who the Union forces refused to return to their former Confederate masters, by defining them as "Contraband of War". The Grand Contraband Camp was the first self-contained black community in the United States and occupied the area of the downtown section of the present-day independent city of Hampton, Virginia.

Read more about Grand Contraband Camp:  Confederate Slaves in Union Hands: Legal Status, The Camp Is Created, Contrabands Join The Union Cause, Education, Legacy

Famous quotes containing the words grand and/or camp:

    We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch.... I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)