On this day in Arlington history, October 18, 1890: US Army Quartermaster General Brig. Gen. Richard N. Batchelder, recommended that the remaining residents of Freedmen’s Village be forced to move out.
After President Abraham Lincoln emancipated enslaved people in the District of Columbia in 1862, large numbers came to the city for protection. DC was already occupied by thousands of troops and overcrowding in camps caused typhus and cholera common. The US Army Quartermaster relocated some freedmen outside the District of Columbia, south of the Potomac on what had been part of the Arlington Estate, because he felt the “pure country air” would have a positive effect.
Freedmen’s Village continued to exist until around the turn of the century. Some Alexandria County residents complained that there were high crime rates in the village and that the villagers were a financial burden to the community. The Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery called for the removal of the residents of Freedmen’s Village because some trees had been cut down in the night and he presumed the people of Freedmen’s Village were the culprits because they needed firewood. Others felt that the complaint about tree removal was a trumped-up charge when, in fact, the government had other plans for the land.
Several times officials and white residents of what was then Alexandria County called for removal of Freedmen’s Village. Each time some residents moved out. The residents appealed repeatedly to the Secretary of War and other officials. Finally on October 18, 1890 the Quartermaster General recommended that those residents of Freedmen’s Village who still remained be forced to move. Congress provided some money to help relocate the remaining residents. Many moved to Nauck/Green Valley, Queen City, and Hall’s Hill. Freedmen’s Village had become much more than a temporary stopover for freed slaves on their way to a new life. It existed as a community for over thirty years until the government forced its closing.
