Washington District of Columbia
1862 Emancipation Act
Furnished by : John G. Sharp
 First page of the 1862 Emancipation Act signed into law by President Lincoln. |
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The District of Columbia Archives has now placed the District of Columbia 1862 Emancipation Act and many of the documents associated with it on line for the first time: The Adobe Acrobat program allows the viewer to see the original holographic documents. The handwriting on these documents and petitions is surprisingly clear. For those with no personal computer, most major libraries have computers available with the Adobe Acrobat program. The District of Columbia Emancipation Act was signed into law on April 16, 1862; President Abraham Lincoln signed this historic bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came nine months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called "the national shame" of slavery in the nations capital. The following documents are included: • The District of Columbia Emancipation ActThe 1862 Emancipation Act provided for immediate emancipation, and compensation of up to $300 for each slave to loyal Unionist masters, voluntary colonization of former slaves to colonies outside the United States, and payments of up to $100 to each person choosing emigration (colonization was not a popular choice of freed slaves). Over the next nine months, the federal government paid almost $1 million for the freedom of approximately 3,100 former slaves. The District of Columbia Archives has provided a real service to historians and individuals interested in family history and genealogy since the List of Petitioners (Owners) who filed for compensation contains the date a particualr claim was filed, names of all petitioners (slave owners) who filed for compensation under the provisions of the act, the names of their slaves and the value of their slaves. Here, on line, researchers can find the names of the 69 enslaved persons owned by George Washington Young, the District of Columbia's largest slave owner and Margaret C. Barber another of the largest slave owners in the District of Columbia and the names of the 34 individuals for whom she received compensation. To see the details of her petition go to Margaret C. Barber's Petition Institutions, too, such as the Sisters of Visitation, of Georgetown DC, owned slaves. The Sisters of Visitation owned 12 slaves, whose individual names and 1862 valuations can be seen recorded on the Sisters petition. The Sisters were later awarded $ 3,774.651 in total compensation.2
In accordance with the provisions of 1862 Act, each individual slave owner was required to fill out such a petition for compensation and the District of
Columbia Archive has placed on line as an example, the Petition of John Harry of Georgetown. John Harry was seeking compensation for "twenty seven
persons of African descent" John Harry also include in his documentation, the 1825 bill of sale, for a: "women named Nancy and her five children" as proof
of his ownership. This bill of sale too is now on line. Family data contained in the Petitions for Compensation can prove helpful to researchers since such
information is often not available in other documents. As an example Washington Navy Yard, Master Plumber, John Davis of Abel, 1853 last will and
testament lists his property and bequests Researchers interested in the history of slavery in the District of Columbia or those tracing ancestors for genealogical purposes will still need to consult the National Archives and Records Administration's six rolls of microfilm that reproduces the three bound volumes and a number of unbound records of the "Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862-1863" to view individual compensation petitions. Now thanks however to the District of Columbia Archives, much of the formerly tedious preliminary research such as trying to track and cross reference owner and slave names can be done on line, prior to actually ever visiting or requesting a copy of a petition from NARA. |
 Detail image of Petition for seven slaves of Sarah Davis of Abel and eight slaves of Ann Scott. |
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Acknowledgment Our thanks to Dr. Stephanie Scott and Archivists Ali Rahmaan and Robert Nelson of the District of Columbia Archives, who so generously made these on line District of Columbia documents available and for providing us their kind help and assistance with our requests for copies of District of Columbia Apprentice Indentures and Last Wills and Testaments to share with our Genealogy Trails readers.
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Endnotes : 1 Source: Final Deposition Report, U.S. House of Representatives 16 February 1864, page 49.
2 For more on the Sisters of the Visitation of Georgetown ownership and manumission of slaves see |
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© 2008 Genealogy Trails by Wayne Hinton