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History of DC Emancipation
Historical Overview
- April 16, 1862 marks the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia with the Compensated Emancipation Act
- July 12, 1862, the Supplemental Compensated Emancipation Act was signed into law
- Over 3,000 enslaved persons in the District of Columbia were freed nine months before Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation
- The District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction in the United States to have compensated slave owners for freeing enslaved persons
- A commission was appointed to appraise the value of each slave
- An average of $300 was paid to slaveholders, as compensation for freeing enslaved persons
- Claims for compensation were required to be presented in 90 days from the passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act
- Nearly $1 million in federal payments were made for the freedom of enslaved persons
- The African-American community celebrated Emancipation Day on April 19, 1866 as represented on a wood engraving sketch by F. Dielman
- On April 16, 1883, Frederick Douglass spoke at the Emancipation Day celebration
- The African-American community has a long history of Emancipation Day celebrations with parades and festivals
- From 1862 to the early 1900s, the Emancipation Day celebration was more important to the African-American community than Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Year’s festivities
Abolition in the District of Columbia
- Jesse Torrey’s 1815 Portraiture of Domestic Slavery passing in front of the Capitol
- Abolitionists challenge Congress to abolish slavery in the District under the constitutional authority of exclusive jurisdiction over the District
- Washington Abolition Society was organized, 1827
- Antislavery newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, 1831
- Abolitionists flood Congress with petitions to end slavery and slave trade in the District
- Congress enacted gag rule in 1836 to set aside petitions to end slavery and slave trade in the District without debate
- John Quincy Adams, former President and Representative from Massachusetts, fought against the gag rule
- A few members of the House of Representatives established an abolitionist lobby
- Abolitionists and the Underground Railroad in the District of Columbia
- Anthony Bowen, a free African-American and conductor in the Underground Railroad in the District, of Columbia
- Slave revolts and Nat Turner’s Insurrection of 1831
- Snow Riot of 1835
- The Pearl Affair and Riot of 1848
- The Compromise of 1850
- Compensated Emancipation Act, April 16, 1862
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