General Benjamin Butler at Fort Monroe, Virginia, declared escaped slaves “contraband” of war and refused to return them to their owners.

During the Civil War, Southern slaves who escaped to Union lines came to be called “contrabands.” The term was first used by General Benjamin Butler, who refused to return escaped slaves to Confederate slaveholders because he deemed them “contraband of war.”

Venture Smith (1729–1805) was a former slave who, in 1798, published his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself. Smith’s narrative recounted his capture and enslavement, and the hard work and ingenuity he employed in his journey to freedom. Smith lived as a slave for twenty-eight years. By 1765, he had saved enough money to buy his own freedom, and he later purchased freedom for...

Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882) was a black abolitionist and clergyman. Garnet escaped from slavery with his family as a boy and settled in New York City. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1841 and soon became a well-known anti-slavery advocate. In 1843, he proposed militant slave uprising, putting him at odds with more centrist abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. During the Civil War, Garnet helped recruit African Americans for the Union Army. He later supported black emigration to Africa, and in 1881 he was appointed...