Two Rare Outdoor Views of Freeman’s Village, Mason’s Island with Multitude of Black Subjects

Alexander Gardner, photographer. Two (2) horizontal albumen CDVs. Washington, D.C.: Philp & Solomons, circa 1864-early 1865. Each with photographer & publisher 511 Seventh Street and 332 Pennsylvania Av. imprints to mount versos.

Two rare outdoor views of buildings in the Freedman’s Village on Mason’s Island near Washington, D.C., each with a host of Black subjects. The first image, taken horizontally, features 13 Black subjects posed in front of a low one-story ranch-style building with a small portico. The second carte offers an alternate view of the same building, now with 4 Black subjects, and a second ranch-style building with a fence.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, a huge influx of newly emancipated formerly enslaved flooded into the Washington, D.C. area prompting the Federal Government to erect camps to house the displaced. These initial camps were overwhelmed, including the Freedman’s Village founded in Arlington, Virginia on the estate of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, forcing the government to seek new locations. They created a new camp on Mason’s Island in the Potomac (now known as Theodore Roosevelt Island), the site of a recently advocated military camp with barracks available for housing.

Opening in July 1864, it was also designated as an employment depot, intended to be temporary housing while inhabitants found permanent employment. The accommodations, as seen here, were deliberately austere, intended by authorities to combat their prejudiced perceptions of the freedmen as “idle” and “dependent,” as demonstrated by this quote from 1st Lieut. Kilburn Knox from 13 October 1864: “If these people, who are fit to go out to Service, were at the Freedmens Village, it would be much harder to get them off to service, as there they have comfortable houses to live in, and the most of these negroes are unwilling to go out to Service as long as they have a house to live in and are well clothed and fed." (Doc. 80 in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861-1867, Series 1, Vol. II).

The residents, already receiving minimal support, were plagued with overcrowding, disease, and even a Confederate raid by General Jubal Early. Conditions gradually improved, however, over the course of 1864 with the help of a Quaker organization before the eventual closure of the camp in May 1865.

An incredibly rare set of views showing the unique living conditions of former slaves in the earliest days of their emancipation.

For further reading on Mason’s Island, please see: Zachary C. Lowe. “Meanings of Freedom: Virginia Contraband Settlements and Wartime Reconstruction.” M.A. diss. College of William and Mary, 2003. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6418&context=etd ; Kate Collins. Mason’s Island: Freedpeople onthe Frontline of Federal Employment Policy. 8 January 2020. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1336aad5d44649368f456fc9a6eef5b4






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