Freedman’s Village

The original map is at the Library of Congress. This version is on the Arlington Public Library website.

“In May 1863, the U.S. government established the Freedman’s Village across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. to help address the needs of the growing number of individuals who had escaped slavery in the south during the Civil War … ”
Virginia Humanities, “Freedman’s Village,” AfroVirginia, accessed September 30, 2019

The site was selected as a “model community for emancipated and fugitive slaves … The Freedmen’s Bureau categorized residents into three classifications: 1) dependents (well and sick) who were unable to work; 2) residents in government employment; and 3) residents who received rations and liens on crops. The objective of the camp was to provide protection, education, instruction, and employment to residents. Men living at the village were often expected to work as military laborers or on government farms. Women labored in tailor shops sewing clothing and other goods…The government assumed that the village would serve only as temporary housing, but many residents stayed and created a semi-permanent settlement that lasted well until the turn of the twentieth century …”
John Paul Liebertz.  A Guide to the African American Heritage of Arlington County, Virginia. Arlington: Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development, Historic Preservation Program, 2016, page 5.

“The village consisted of approximately fifty neatly arranged dwellings, each a story and a half in height and divided down the middle for occupancy by two families. The streets and parks all bore the names of prominent government officials or generals. There was also a hospital, a home for the indigent, a school and a chapel. A variety of shops in which men learned carpentry and blacksmithing and women ‘the use of the needle & of the sewing machine’ completed the scene. Able-bodied inhabitants not otherwise employed worked on government farms.  Wages were $10 per month, minus $5 for the contraband fund.”
Joseph P. Reidy. “‘Coming from the shadow of the past:’ The Transition from Slavery to Freedom at Freedmen’s Village, 1863-1900,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 95 (October 1987) No. 4, page 411.

There’s even more information at Arlington Public Library, “From Freedman’s Village to Queen City: One Community’s Evolution,” accessed September 30, 2019