He wanted to teach the skills necessary for blacks to be self-supporting in the impoverished South. He patterned his new school after the model of his father, who had overseen the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic to the Polynesians. He also had dreams for the betterment of the freedmen. Unlike the wealthy Palmer, Sam Armstrong was the son of a missionary to the Sandwich Islands (which later became the U.S. (The current Palmer Hall on the campus is named in his honor.) He was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in 1894. As the Civil War began in 1861, although his Quaker upbringing made Palmer abhor violence, his passion to see the slaves freed compelled him to enter the war. He later built the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and founded Colorado Springs, Colorado. One of the many Civil War veterans who gave substantial sums to the school was General William Jackson Palmer, a Union cavalry commander from Philadelphia. Typical of historically black colleges, Hampton received much of its financial support in the years following the Civil War from the American Missionary Association (whose black and white leaders represented the Congregational and Presbyterian churches), other church groups and former officers and soldiers of the Union Army. Legally chartered in 1870 as a land grant school,it was first known as "Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute." The original school buildings fronted the Hampton River. The new school was established on the grounds of a former plantation named "Little Scotland", which had a view of Hampton Roads. After the War: teaching teachersĪfter the War, a normal school ("normal" meaning to establish standards or norms while educating teachers) was formalized in 1868, with former Union brevet Brigadier General Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839–1893) as its first principal. The newly issued Emancipation Proclamation was first read to a gathering under the historic tree there in 1863. Peake, which began in 1861 with outdoor classes which she taught under the landmark Emancipation Oak in the nearby area of Elizabeth City County. Hampton University traces its roots to the work of Mary S. As numerous individuals sought freedom behind Union lines, the Army arranged for the construction of the Grand Contraband Camp nearby, from materials reclaimed from the ruins of Hampton, which had been burned by the retreating Confederate Army. Butler, determined they were "contraband of war", to protect them from being returned to slaveholders, who clamored to reclaim them. Civil Warĭuring the American Civil War (1861–1865), Union-held Fortress Monroe in southeastern Virginia at the mouth of Hampton Roads became a gathering point and safe haven of sorts for fugitive slaves. Washington, an educator who founded the Tuskegee Institute, another college supported by the AMA. It was first led by former Union General Samuel Chapman Armstrong. The Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, later called the Hampton Institute, was founded in 1868 after the war by the biracial leadership of the AMA, who were chiefly Congregational and Presbyterian ministers. The tree, now a symbol of the university and of the city, is part of the National Historic Landmark District at Hampton University. After the tree was the site of the first reading in the former Confederate states of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it was called the Emancipation Oak. She first taught for the AMA on Septemand was said to gather her pupils under a large oak. The American Missionary Association (AMA) responded in 1861 to the former slaves' need for education by hiring its first teacher, Mary Smith Peake, who had secretly been teaching slaves and free blacks in the area despite the state's prohibition in law. These facilities represented freedom to former slaves, who sought refuge with Union forces during the first year of the war. The campus looking south across the harbor of Hampton Roads was founded on the grounds of "Little Scotland", a former plantation in Elizabeth City County not far from Fortress Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp that gathered nearby.
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