This interactive mapping feature demonstrates the diversity of the Black community and experiences represented at Fort Negley before, during, and after the Civil War. If you toggle the map to under “Where are people from?” to “Everyone,” you can see the scope of people involved in building and defending the fort. It illustrates the aspirational nature of Fort Negley and how diverse the historic and modern-day Black population in Middle Tennessee. For example, each circle and its corresponding size represents the location and amount of people who came from that place to Fort Negley in the database’s sources. As a whole, this map highlights Black agency and people taking action during the war and how the Black experience at Fort Negley and Middle Tennessee was far from a monolith – rather, it was a wide range of experiences and places influenced people coming together at this site.
This visualization helps to show how Fort Negley was a nexus for significant movement and Black refugeeism during the war. These patterns of movement to Fort Negley and Nashville resulted from a wide variety of actions: self-emancipation and running away during the war; people being impressed from nearby plantations; soldiers and sailors of the USCT who volunteered to serve from all over the country; and refugeeism and escape movements from the destruction of the war. It also demonstrates the geographic nature of gradual emancipation and the robust history of how people fled towards Union-controlled lines for freedom during the war and emancipation.
Other map searching functions highlight additional themes around slavery and reconstruction from the database. For example, the “Prisoners” mapping feature demonstrates origination locations for prisoners at the Tennessee State Penitentiary. Given that some of the incarcerated were imprisoned for “harboring slaves” and helping them seek freedom before the war, it shows geographic patterns of a circulation of ideas around abolition and emancipation.