• The Kitchen Cabin, Smokehouse and Tobacco Barn in the Distance

    Booker T Washington

    National Monument Virginia

War on the Home Front

Actor protraying a Union Soldier reading Emancipation Proclamation to slaves.
Booker T. Washington remembered a Union Soldier reading Emancipation Proclamation to slaves at the end of the Civil War.  This event was his emancipation moment.
NPS Photo
 

"Freedom cannot be given; it must be purchased.”

Booker T. Washington

How did the debate on slavery and the Civil War affect the slave-holding farms and plantations in the South? How did the slaves and owners react to the creation of the Confederacy and the Civil War?

Students discuss the causes and effects of the war and how people on the home front viewed the war. By comparing and contrasting the experiences of owners and slaves during the Civil War, and subsequent emancipation, students evaluate how these events affected both master and slave living on the Burroughs plantation.

 

Did You Know?

Photo of James and Elizabeth Burroughs

Booker T. Washington was born a slave on the farm of James and Elizabeth Burroughs on April 5, 1856.