page_title: Norfolk, Virginia
section_title: Nineteenth century
hierarchical_section_title: Norfolk, Virginia / History / Nineteenth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first and seventh president of Liberia. Deutsch: Joseph J. Roberts, nach Liberias Unabhängigkeitserklärung von 1848 bis 1856 erster Präsident des Landes, der von 1872 bis 1876 ein weiteres Mal das Präsidentenamt bekleidete, um 1851.
context_page_description: Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. At the 2010 census, the population was 242,803; in 2019, the population was estimated to be 242,742 making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 91st largest city in the nation.
  Norfolk is located at the core of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, named for the large natural harbor of the same name located at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It is one of nine cities and seven counties that constitute the Hampton Roads metro area, officially known as the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA. The city is bordered to the west by the Elizabeth River and to the north by the Chesapeake Bay. It also shares land borders with the independent cities of Chesapeake to its south and Virginia Beach to its east. Norfolk is one of the oldest cities in Hampton Roads, and is considered to be the historic, urban, financial, and cultural center of the region.
  The city has a long history as a strategic military and transportation point, where many railroad lines started. Norfolk was the terminus of the Atlantic and Danville Railway in 1890.
context_section_description: Following recovery from the Revolutionary War's burning, Norfolk and her citizens struggled to rebuild. In 1804, another serious fire along the city's waterfront destroyed some 300 buildings and the city suffered a serious economic setback. During the 1820s, agrarian communities across the American South suffered a prolonged recession, which caused many families to migrate to other areas. Many moved west into the Piedmont, or further into Kentucky and Tennessee.  Such migration also followed the exhaustion of soil due to tobacco cultivation in the Tidewater, where it had been the primary commodity crop for generations.
  Virginia made some attempts to phase out slavery and manumissions increased in the two decades following the war. Thomas Jefferson Randolph gained passage of an 1832 resolution for gradual abolition in the state. However, by that time the increased demand from the settlement of the lower South states had created a large internal market for slavery. The invention of the cotton gin in the late-eighteenth century had made profitable the cultivation of short-staple cotton in the uplands, which was widely practiced.
  The American Colonization Society proposed to "repatriate" free blacks and freed slaves to Africa by establishing the new colony of Liberia and paying for transportation. But most African-Americans wanted to stay in their birthplace of the United States and achieve freedom and rights there. For a period, many emigrants to Liberia from Virginia and North Carolina embarked from the port of Norfolk. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a free person of color native to Norfolk, emigrated via the American Colonization Society and later was elected as the first president of Liberia, establishing a powerful family.
  On June 7, 1855, the 183-foot vessel Benjamin Franklin put into Hampton Roads for repairs. She had just sailed from the West Indies, where there had been an outbreak of yellow fever. The port health officer ordered the ship quarantined. After eleven days, a second inspection found no issues, so she was allowed to dock. A few days later, the first cases of yellow fever were discovered in Norfolk, and a machinist died from the disease on July 8. By August, several people were dying per day, and a third of the city's population had fled in the hopes of escaping the epidemic. No one understood how the disease was transmitted. With both Norfolk and Portsmouth being infected, New York banned all traffic from those sites. Neighboring cities also banned residents from Norfolk. The epidemic spread through the city via mosquitoes and poor sanitation, affecting every family and causing widespread panic. The number of infected reached 5,000 in September, and by the second week, 1,500 had died in Norfolk and Portsmouth. As the weather cooled, the outbreak began to wane, leaving a final tally of about 3,200 dead. It took the city some time to recover.
  In early 1861, Norfolk voters instructed their delegate to vote for secession. Virginia voted to secede from the Union. In the spring of 1862, the Battle of Hampton Roads took place off the northwest shore of the city's Sewell's Point Peninsula, marking the first fight between two ironclads, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The battle ended in a stalemate, but changed the course of naval warfare; from then on, warships were fortified with metal.
  In May 1862, Norfolk Mayor William Lamb surrendered the city to Union General John E. Wool and his forces. They held the city under martial law for the duration of the Civil War. Thousands of slaves from the region escaped to Union lines to gain freedom; they quickly set up schools in Norfolk to start learning how to read and write, years before the end of the war.
caption: Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born and raised in Norfolk, became the first President of Liberia.
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