Figure 1.--This photograph at the Hamptoin Institute shows the children doing very disciplined exercizes. They look to be arond 13 years old. The photoigraph is undated, but was probably taken in the early-1900s decade. Based on how the children are dressed, they look like they came from well-to-do black families imn Hampton Roads. .

Hampton Institute is today Hampton University, a private historically black research university in Hampton, Virginia. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War (1868). The goal was to provide education to the new freedmen. It now maintains the Hampton University Museum, which is the oldest museum of the African diaspora in the United States and the oldest museum in Virginia. It was founded as a normal school, to train black teachers for the new public schools being established in Virginia. As it bhad beennillegal to educated blacks before the Civil War, there was a great need to tarin black teachers. Former Union brevet Brigadier General Samuel C. Armstrong (1839–1893) was the first principal. The new school was built on a former plantation named 'Little Scotland' with a panormaic view of Hampton Roads which played an imprtant role in early American history. The body of water known as Hampton Roads is one of the world's largest natural harbors. During the American Civil War (1861–65), the historic Battle of Hampton Roads between the first American ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (Merimack) took place off Sewell's Point in (1862). Federal forces later took control of Hampton Roads, Norfolk, and the lower James River. Some escaped slaves had been camped near Fort Monroe. Their owners demand them back. The Federal commander vrefused, declaring them to be contraband of war. The original school buildings fronted the Hampton River. The school was egally chartered as a land grant school (1870). It first known as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. By the tirn of the century it had become a college, but maintained a schools for youunger children as part of the teacher training program. We have aphotograph taken about 1900 with children doing their exercizes.

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Created: 7:29 PM 5/12/2021
Last updated: 7:29 PM 5/12/2021