Existing comment:
Emancipation:
On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed into law a bill outlawing slavery in the District of Columbia. The bill also provided funds to compensate slave-owners for the loss of their slaves. Slave-owners who were unhappy with the amount of compensation could appear before a local commission to appeal. Henry Naylor, George Washington Talbert, James L. Addison, J. Fenwick Young, and Thomas Blagden were among slave-owners in Far Southeast who petitioned this commission.
Because a large number of southern black immigrants to the city were former slaves with few or no resources at all, many of them remained impoverished and lived in squalid, unsafe conditions in alley tenements. Some Washington homeowners constructed cheap frame housing on their own lots accessible only by back alleys and rented these to poor families to take advantage of the severe housing shortage. The Freedmen's Bureau housed some of these families in District buildings which formerly served as barracks. From there, the able-bodied sough work, but jobs were scarce for the freedmen, as native Washingtonians exhibited some bias and no little resentment towards the newcomers.
Some African Americans, with better means to earn their livelihoods and with pre-existing networks of friends and family in the area, settled in the Good Hope area. They preferred the fresh air and open spaces of rural Good Hope, rather than the crowded, dangerous alley dwellings. Allen Chapel remained at the center of this rapidly expanding black community. In 1865, the Freedman's Bureau opened Good Hope School to serve this population. |