From “Gibraltar of the Chesapeake” to “Freedom’s Fortress”: Reinterpreting Fort Monroe

Abstract

Historians, community activists, leaders with the Fort Monroe Authority, and the National Park Service collaborated to reimagine the legacy of Fort Monroe, long known as the “Gibraltar of the Chesapeake,” after 188 years of service as a military base. However, Fort Monroe also was the site where America’s institution of slavery began evolving and where that institution also began unraveling. This is the legacy that is foregrounded for 21st-century visitors. In 2019, Fort Monroe hosted the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the landing of the first Africans in the Virginia colony. A new Welcome Center focuses on this legacy. While Fort Monroe continues to highlight its military history and the natural landscape to countless visitors, the primary narrative interprets 1619 and the Civil War-era contraband story. Adding to this important story is the 2021 designation of Fort Monroe as a Site of Memory Associated to the Slave Route by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Today’s message to visitors is very different than it once was, and much more engaging. In so many ways, the recent changes reflect current historical scholarship and the many voices of those whose lives and history intersected at this site.