The history of Fort Monroe in Hampton is the focus of the Mathews Museum’s “Towards Freedom,” exhibition which opened this week.
The exhibit includes nine art panels and the short film, “Freedom’s Fortress,” will be shown Friday, February 7 and it highlights the fort’s importance in Hampton Roads.
The fort sits on an area once known as Point Comfort; in 1619 a cargo of kidnapped Africans was taken there and traded for supplies. The arrival of the "20 and odd" Africans marked the beginning of enslavement in an English North American colony. In May 1861, at the start of the Civil War, three enslaved men escaped to Fort Monroe.
Part of the exhibit details how Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler declared the men - Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory and James Townsend - “contraband of war” and refused to return them to their Confederate owners. The action prompted thousands of enslaved to flee to Fort Monroe.
“Many of them saw a chance to leave their chains,” said Tom Robinson, president of the museum.
The migration helped lead to the abolition of slavery in America.
Fort Monroe was deactivated in 2011 and designated a national monument.
Part of the museum’s Black History Month activities include a display of handmade quilts on loan from the Hampton History Museum. Some of the quilts are more than 100 years old.
Mathews Museum, 200 Main St., Mathews. mathewsvamuseum.org
