Dear Ones at Home: Letters from Contraband Camps

When Lucy Chase (1822-1909) and her sister, Sarah Chase (1836-1911), single women from a well-to-do Quaker family of Worcester, Massachusetts, arrived at the contraband camp established on Craney Island near Norfolk, Virginia, in 1863, they found the needs of the newly freed slaves assembled there to be overwhelming. They commenced their work of dispensing material aid, establishing schools, and preparing black people to become self-sufficient, work they continued in other locations in the South for much of the decade. The correspondence of the Chase sisters, which spans the years 1861-70 and includes a number of letters from New England supporters and blacks whom the sisters had taught, constitutes a valuable source for examining the interaction of female humanitarians from the north with federal officials, ex-slaves, and white southerners. Lucy Chases's richly detailed accounts of the life histories of former slaves and the beliefs and religious practices of the black community are of unusual interest.