Have you ever heard of Freedman’s Village, a town of freed so-called slaves on the seized estate of Robert E. Lee.

Well, it was once a thriving bastion of hope, of around 100 residents, in small wooden homes.

Timeline.com wrote:

Freedman’s Village, which started in 1863 with 50 wooden houses, was touted as a model community when it was dedicated, with farms, a hospital, an orphanage, and a home for the elderly. By 1864, though, conditions were dismal. People were hungry, unwanted by the surrounding community, and exploited by opportunists. “I am a going around among the colored folks and find out who it is sells the clothing to them that is sent to them from the North,” [Sojourner] Truth wrote to her daughter, deeply dismayed, shortly before her meeting with Lincoln.

Through the work of Truth and missionary organizations, the camp became a permanent home for former slaves. That home lasted until 1890, when it was razed—residents driven from their homes—to make way for Arlington National Cemetery.

Freedman’s Village was built on land seized from Robert E. Lee and occupied by the Union army since the beginning of the war. The grounds of the Confederate commander’s estate were used first as a soldier’s camp then as a graveyard, in a deliberate attempt to provoke the general. It worked. “Your old home, if not destroyed by our enemies, has been so desecrated that I cannot bear to think of it,” Lee wrote in a letter to his daughter in a Christmastime letter in 1861.

By 1863, the land was home to former slaves who escaped to the capitol during the Civil War.

Slavery had been abolished in Washington D.C. in 1862, attracting thousands running from bondage, dubbed “contraband” because they were still considered property of their Southern owners. So-called “contraband camps” were established to house them.

So, how did they end up run out of their homes?

In 1868 efforts were underway to evict residents.

However, they held fast and the government allowed them to stay for two more years. Then many elderly residents had to leave, 150 were taken to Freedman’s Hospital and by 1882 local officials wanted to enact a plan to turn the land into a public park. Nearby locals said the village was a problem, accusing villagers of tree cutting (without authorisation) and despite the residents wanting to stay and then pleading for $350 for the relocation of each resident they were still forced off their land with no reparations.

In 1900 some reparations were handed out, a sum of $75,000 which was shared amongst former residents and heirs. However, Robert E. Lee’s eldest son received $150,000 for his family estate showing how the residents were hardly considered in this case.

The land eventually became Arlington Cemetery. Although Medgar Evers, Thurgood Marshall, and Joe Louis are among the famous Black Americans buried there 3,80 former so-called Contrabands from the Civil War are buried with no name, just the words “citizen” or “civilian.”

Learn more on Timeline.com here.