A Manifesto

I always wanted to write one.

On Thursday, May 23, 1861, Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Shepard Mallory orchestrated the greatest heist in American history.

Working as forced laborers leased to Virginia’s 115th Confederate militia, the enslaved trio stole a small boat from the spot where Colonial Virginia Governor Sir George Yeardley and Supply Officer Abraham Peirsey negotiated a dirt-cheap price for “20 & odd” enslaved Africans in 1619. The self-emancipated men rowed the skiff to Union-occupied Fort Monroe and presented themselves to Union officer Major General Benjamin Butler.

Confederate Colonel Charles Mallory was furious. His neck red with anger, Mallory demanded that Butler return the hijacked human chattel and charged the Union Army with looting. An attorney, General Butler pointed out that the Black men weren’t stolen; the Union Army only received Mallory’s pilfered property.

According to Butler’s interpretation of U.S. military law, Baker, Townsend and Mallory were thieves who had stolen themselves. And since the men were being used as weapons by the Confederate traitors, the Union Army had as much right to confiscate them as a soldier who took an enemy’s gun during a battle. Asked by a top henchman for the Confederate Army, “What do you mean to do with these negroes?” Butler’s answer changed the course of history:

“I shall hold these negroes as contraband of war.” 

On Sunday, May 26, eight more escapees showed up. The next day, 47 men, women and children un-enslaved themselves and fled to the Union camp. By Wednesday, new “contrabands” were arriving by the hour.

President Abraham Lincoln wasn’t pleased.

Lincoln considered the Confederates to be insurrectionists and regarded the slaves as less-than-human property. “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists,” he said in his inaugural address weeks earlier, reiterating his stance that “There must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

But by treating the enslavers as enemy combatants, Butler forced Congress to act. On August 6, Congress passed An Act to Confiscate Property Used for Insurrectionary Purposes, making Butler’s argument national policy. A year later, the Second Confiscation Act declared that all escaped slaves in Confederate territory “shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.”

Escapes skyrocketed.

Many of these self-liberated drapetomaniacs found refuge in “contraband camps,” most of which were built and maintained by the formerly enslaved. The newly emancipated built their own housing, organized schools, protected the camps, held political rallies and recruited teachers. They reunited with family members, performed wedding ceremonies and shared their stories. By the formal end of the war for white supremacy, the Department of War counted more than 100 makeshift enclaves for refugees from America’s race-based, constitutionally enforced institution that stole labor and intellectual property through violence or the threat of violence.

Union soldier, spy and reconnaissance officer Harriet Tubman worked as a nurse in a South Carolina contraband camp, where she got the intel that led to the 1863 Combahee River Raid, which converted 700 captives to contraband status. William Henry Singleton recruited at least a thousand Black soldiers from the 20,000 refugees in New Bern, North Carolina’s camp. Perhaps the most remarkable example of this new self-sufficient American institution was the original — the Grand Contraband Camp near Fort Monroe, Virginia.

On Sept. 17, 1861, Mary Peake arrived at "Freedom's Fortress.”

Born a free Black woman in Virginia, Peake was a career criminal who repeatedly broke one of her state’s strictest laws — teaching enslaved people to read. Barely a month after the passage of the First Confiscation Act, she began teaching students under a large oak tree at the Grand Contraband Camp. Soon, Peake had to teach in shifts because so many people took advantage of the free education. On New Year’s Day in 1863, self-stolen thieves from across Virginia gathered under that tree to hear the first public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.

But what happened to the contraband camps?

After the Civil War, they became the center of Black freedom. Some — like the tree in the Grand Contraband Camp now known as Hampton University —evolved into schools and historically Black colleges. African-American neighborhoods and Black-owned business districts in St. Louis, Nashville and Kansas City are former contraband camps. Dozens of self-sufficient “freedmen’s towns,” including Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and Promised Land, South Carolina, were founded on these sites and became hubs of Black political power. Contraband camp produced more than 200 schools, 12 HBCUs, three Black senators, 22 U.S. representatives, hundreds of state legislators and local elected officials and at least a million registered voters …

… And American democracy.

The Emancipation Proclamation only affected an estimated 25,000 to 75,000 people — specifically those still enslaved in Confederate states under Union control. President Lincoln never intended to free them. There is not a single speech, document or shred of contemporaneous evidence from anyone arguing the Civil War was fought to end race-based servitude. And, while the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments banned most forms of slavery, made contrabands into citizens and protected the right to vote, they simply protected the rights of people who had already freed themselves.

By stealing their freedom, Frank Baker, James Townsend, Shepard Mallory and others constructed a democratic society where none existed. These auto-abolitionists built homes, schools and a Black political power base, and also rewrote the state constitutions that created universal male suffrage, free public education and due process. South Carolina invented the American education system as we know it. Without these Black Founding Fathers, there would be no freedom, democracy or an “American Dream.” The legal definition of “American” wouldn’t even exist without them.

“The First Contrabands” statue at Fort Monroe

This is an emancipation proclamation.

In the ongoing culture war against history, integrity and facts, mainstream media has sided with the faction that declared war on truth. Our most trusted news sources and social platforms actively participated in the effort to euphemize white supremacy, whitewash truth and silence our voices. However, the increasing democratization of media presents us with a new opportunity.

What if we just stole ourselves?

This is a new community for people who are unafraid to declare their own independence. It is a stolen skiff and a second-shift classroom. It is a recruiting ground for the liberation-minded and a refuge for the self-emancipated. More importantly, it is a community that we will build from scratch.

Welcome to ContrabandCamp.

What is ContrabandCamp?

Contraband Camp is a thinkers’ collective.

We feature sourced reporting, nuanced analysis and unapologetically Black conversations that reflect the real lives of Black people.

But don’t get it twisted; this ain’t the trap N.Y. Times. While ContrabandCamp contributors are the best and Blackest storytellers, journalists and public scholars, our roster also includes cultural critics, comedians, authors, media reviewers, music journalists, podcasters and others who help form the four pillars on which ContrabandCamp rests:

• Liberation journalism: Original reporting, data-based analysis and investigative journalism focused on issues that affect Black communities and individuals. (More on that later)

• Truth-telling: Our BlackCheck series will research and fact-check popular media narratives. Scholars, activists, educators and writers will add nuanced perspectives and informed opinions to the public record.

• Bearing witness: ContrabandCamp is dedicated to amplifying Black storytelling. A slate of skilled journalists and young reporters will share overlooked, ignored and forgotten perspectives often missing from mainstream media outlets. Our “Campfire Stories” series features essays, book excerpts, short stories and even videos from hilarious comedians, celebrated writers and new voices.

• The culture: Uniquely Black perspectives on music, art, sports, pop culture and the that unite (and divide) us, including: Would you buy an Eddie King Jr. comeback album? Did capitalism ruin hip-hop? Movie, television and music reviews from accomplished critics and reviewers.

Subscribers will have access to original reporting, articles, podcasts and videos telling our stories in our voices, speaking our language, all with one goal in mind:

To get free.

We understand this content is much less likely to “go viral” than the popular hot takes and trending thinkpieces. However, we believe it is possible to build a dedicated, niche audience interested in nuanced dialogue and deep dives from a Black perspective. In a post-fact world where “reality” is a television genre and legislators have literally made it illegal to tell the truth, Black stories are now a form of contraband.

So we built a camp.