HIST390-003

Since the creation of the District of Columbia, antislavery reformers had decried the presence of slavery as a contradiction of the nation's founding principles of freedom, equality, and justice. The nation's capital was a natural target for the early antislavery movement. Constitutionally, Congress controlled the District of Columbia through "exclusive jurisdiction" and could eliminate the slave trade and slavery itself within its borders at any time. When the federal government moved to Washington in 1800, Congress agreed to enforce Maryland's laws in the city, including both slavery and a "black code" that restricted the freedom of all African Americans, slave and free. As a southern city, Washington was a congenial place for slavery to take root. In 1800, thirty percent of the District of Columbia's residents were African Americans, fewer than one-fifth of them free. From its very beginning, visitors and government officials from the North and abroad condemned the capital for its open slave markets, economic reliance on slavery, exploitation of African Americans, and racial discrimination. Immediately after moving into the White House, for example, Abigail Adams wrote contemptuously that "The effects of slavery are visible everywhere." The institution continued to grow steadily until 1830, when the number of slaves in Washington reached its peak, representing twelve percent of the city's population. At the same time, Washington began supplanting Baltimore as a regional center of the slave trade. After 1830, slavery began to decline in Washington as the slave trade drained laborers from the faltering tobacco plantations of the Chesapeake region. Between 1830 and 1860, the slave population fell from its peak of twelve percent to just three percent of the District of Columbia's residents, about 3,300.

Completely readable online. Published 1937. Hathitrust Digital Library also includes related references. Detailed description of landscape of White House over time, changes by various occupants, development of White House from "country" landscape to formal occupancy of today. Missing? Role of builders and workers, including enslaved workers.

as seen on tumblr and narrated with primary source docs. Context, context, context

From library of Congress. Created by the Engineer Department of the District of Columbia, published 1892

Probably Sylvan Theater, Natinal Mall.

Fugazi concert promo, US Capitol, July 25, 1992

Author: Bell Clement. JSTOR: Washington History, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall/Winter, 2004/2005), pp. 86-109 This journal article is an example of one sort of material that should be bookmarked and annotated in Zotero rather that Diigo. However, it's an explanation of the context and history of response to Bolling vs Sharpe--DCs equivalent of Brown vs Board of Education. DC required a separate ruling since the 14th Amendment under which Brown was decided applies only to States, not the District of Columbia.

History of the market, its vendors, and regulatory issues in the site's rise and demise

Aggregated data from US Uniform Crime Report in rectangular chart form

Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit A First Step for Racial Equality in the Circuit Court of Washington In 1843, when Nancy Hillman, the only surviving heir of Georgetown's most prominent free black man, tried to collect on money he was owed for 20 years, she faced two obstacles in the Circuit Court. The D.C. Judge Who Bedeviled President Lincoln In the midst of the Civil War, one D.C. judge so irritated Abraham Lincoln that the President ordered his salary withheld and armed soldiers were sent to his home. As if that wasn't enough, the court on which the judge sat, the principal court that had served the District since the inception of its judicial system, was abolished -- primarily to get rid of the judge. An Early Civil Rights Victory in a D.C. Court In 1821 - long before the civil rights movement - a free black man living in Washington won an historic victory for racial justice in a court of the District of Columbia. The Dark Days of the Black Codes Fourteen-year-old Nancy Jones was scared. She had been stopped by a policeman while walking down a Washington, D.C. street, and he had asked to see her papers. Nancy had good cause to be afraid. She was an African American, and it was 1835. And she did not have the papers. The policeman immediately arrested her as a runaway slave. Yet, Nancy was not a slave and never had been one.

Reprint of article from Boston Globe (1888) with image of first elephant house (1899) Blogpost also includes photo of Olmstead plans for National Zoological Park...and more...

Clark Mills, culptor of the Lafayette Park Andrew Jackson statue writes to Washington Post in 1877 about the scandalous shame of the unfinished washington monument

For over a century, the Willard Hotel has been the gathering place and site of innumerable behind-the-scenes networking among the powerful and famous (and often rich) in Washington.Note its proximity to the White House and other physical centers of power,