Author Topic: Statue decolonization  (Read 4969 times)

Zea_mays

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Re: Statue decolonization
« Reply #105 on: December 16, 2021, 08:12:17 pm »
During the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee's estate was seized and used as a cemetery:

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In June 1862, the 37th United States Congress enacted legislation that imposed a property tax on all land in "insurrectionary" areas of the United States.[19] The 1863 amendments to the statute required these taxes to be paid in person.[16][20] But Mary Lee, afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis and behind Confederate lines, could not pay the tax in person.[20] The Arlington estate was seized for nonpayment of taxes. It was auctioned off on January 11, 1864, and the U.S. government won the property for $26,800 ($453,095 today).
[...]
By early 1864, the military cemeteries of Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Virginia, were rapidly filling with war dead. Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using 200 acres (81 ha) of the Arlington estate as a cemetery.[13] United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery.[16][23] Meigs believed that since Lee had committed treason in deciding to fight against the Union,[24] denying Lee use of the mansion after the war was a rough form of justice.[25] Meigs decided that a large number of burials should occur close to Arlington House to render it unlivable. Officers were to be buried next to the main flower garden south of the house, and the first burial occurred here on May 17.[26] Meigs ordered that additional burials commence immediately on the grounds of Arlington House in mid-June.[26] When Union officers bivouacked in the mansion complained and had the burials temporarily stopped, Meigs countermanded their orders and had another 44 dead officers buried along the southern and eastern sides of the main flower garden within a month.[26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_House,_The_Robert_E._Lee_Memorial

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Beginning in 1863, the federal government used the southern portion of the land now occupied by the cemetery as a settlement for freed slaves, giving the name of "Freedman's Village" to the land. The government constructed rental houses that 1,100 to 3,000 freed slaves eventually occupied while farming 1,100 acres (450 ha) of the estate and receiving schooling and occupational training during the Civil War and after War ended.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_National_Cemetery#Freedman's_Village