THEY WANT TO SEE FORT MONROE MADE A NATIONAL PARK AFTER ARMY LEAVES
Associated Press
RESOURCES
HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS
• April 28, 1607: Capt. Christopher Newport and English settlers land on peninsula before sailing on to Jamestown.
• 1609: Fort Algernon, constructed of earthwork and boards “10 hands high,” built by British.
• 1612: Fort Algernon burns down.
• 1619: Arrival of first enslaved Africans in Colonial America.
• 1730s: Fort George built of brick and shell lime, to guard against French invasion.
• 1749: Fort George destroyed by hurricane.
• 1819-34: Fort Monroe is built.
• 1828: Edgar Allen Poe, under the alias Edgar A. Perry, serves several months at Fort Monroe.
• May 23, 1861: Three escaped slaves seek refuge at Fort Monroe. By the end of the war, more than 10,000 slaves had sought refuge at the fort.
• March 9, 1862: The ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimac) and the Monitor clash in the Battle of Hampton Roads as soldiers from Fort Monroe look on.
• December 1863: One year after Lincoln signs Emancipation Proclamation, the 1st Cavalry Regiment of Colored Troops attached to Fort Monroe.
• May 19, 1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis begins two-year imprisonment.
Online
• Fort Monroe: www.monroe.army.mil/
monroe/sites/local
• Fort Monroe Federal Area Development Authority:
• Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HAMPTON, VA. — Fort Monroe — a Union oasis where fugitive slaves flocked during the Civil War — returns to Virginia’s control when the Army pulls out in 2011, and historians are trying to protect the future of the “Freedom Fortress.”
Many slave descendants trace the arrival of slavery in the U.S. in 1619 to Old Point Comfort, the hatchet-shaped peninsula where Fort Monroe sits, and where slavery would be ushered into its final stages nearly 2 1/2 centuries later.
“When you look at how immigrants went to Ellis Island, our people couldn’t do this,” said Gerri L. Hollins, who counts a fugitive slave among her ancestors. “This is our Ellis Island.”
Supporters want to see the fort become a national park.
A state-appointed authority has presented a reuse plan to Gov. Timothy Kaine that proposes preservation and strict limits on new development.
The panel is determining how best to tell the fort’s history, and descendants of slaves who found their freedom there are hopeful their story will be featured.
William A. Armbruster, executive director of the authority studying the base’s future, said, “It is a treasure that we want to protect. We want future generations to say, ‘Thank God, we got it right.’ “
Slavery’s end began here
The six-sided, 63-acre fortress sealed by 1.3 miles of granite is the last active moated fort in the U.S.
The property includes 264 government buildings and housing, and a majority are deemed historic.
It was at Fort Monroe that the stage would be set for slavery’s demise in May 1861, two years before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
At the time, a Union commander declared that three fugitive slaves who arrived there were contraband — war spoils — and he effectively freed them as a result.
The gesture sent a flood of slaves to Fort Monroe in what some historians say is one of the most powerful events of the Civil War.
Governor has final say
The fate of the “Gibraltar of the Chesapeake,” the fort’s nickname during 35 years as the home of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, is being pieced together by the state-appointed Fort Monroe Federal Area Development Authority.
While the U.S. Department of Defense will review proposals for Fort Monroe’s future, Kaine or his successor will have the final say.
Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey said the governor expects any plans to honor the history of Fort Monroe, keep it free and open to the public and make it economically sound.
SOURCE: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5884301.html
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