The history of Washington, D.C., is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. The site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was first selected by President George Washington. The city came under attack during the War of 1812. Upon the government's return to the capital, it had to manage the reconstruction of numerous public buildings, including the White House and the United States Capitol. The McMillan Plan of 1901 helped restore and beautify the downtown core area, including establishing the National Mall, along with numerous monuments and museums.
Relative to other major cities with a high percentage of African Americans, Washington, D.C. has had a significant black population since the city's creation. As a result, Washington became both a center of African American culture and a center of the civil rights movement. Since the city government was run by the U.S. federal government, black and white school teachers were paid at an equal scale as workers for the federal government. It was not until the administration of Woodrow Wilson, a Southern Democrat who had numerous Southerners in his cabinet, that federal offices and workplaces were segregated, starting in 1913. This situation persisted for decades: the city was racially segregated in certain facilities until the 1950s.
Neighborhoods on the eastern periphery of the central city and east of the Anacostia River tend to be disproportionately lower-income. Following World War II, many middle-income whites moved out of the city's central and eastern sections to newer, affordable suburban housing, with commuting eased by highway construction. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, sparked major riots in chiefly African American neighborhoods east of Rock Creek Park. Large sections of the central city remained blighted for decades. Areas west of the Park, including virtually the entire portion of the District between the Georgetown and Chevy Chase neighborhoods, include some of the nation's most affluent and notable neighborhoods. During the early 20th century, the U Street Corridor served as an important center for African American culture in the city. The Washington Metro opened in 1976. A rising economy and gentrification in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to the revitalization of many downtown neighborhoods.
Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution places the District, which is not a state, under the exclusive legislation of Congress. Throughout its history, Washington, D.C. residents have therefore lacked voting representation in Congress. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961, gave the District three electoral votes, implicitly authorizing it to hold an election for president and vice president. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act provided the local government more control of affairs, including direct election of the city council and mayor.
Early settlement
Archaeological evidence indicates Native American Indian tribes relocated to the area at least 4,000 years ago, where they settled around the Anacostia River. Early European exploration of the region took place early in the 17th century, including explorations by Captain John Smith in 1608.(1) McAtee, p. 5.(2)
At the time, the Patawomeck, loosely affiliated with the Powhatan, and the Doeg lived on the Virginia side of present-day Washington, D.C. and on Theodore Roosevelt Island, and the Piscataway, also known as Conoy tribe of Algonquians, resided on the Maryland side. Native inhabitants within present-day Washington, D.C., included the Nacotchtank, at Anacostia, who were affiliated with the Conoy. Another village was located between Little Falls and Georgetown, and English fur trader Henry Fleet documented a Nacotchtank village called Tohoga on the site of present-day Georgetown.
The first colonial-era landowners in the present-day Washington, D.C. were George Thompson and Thomas Gerrard, who were granted the Blue Plains tract in 1662, along with Saint Elizabeth, and other tracts in Anacostia, Capitol Hill, and other areas down to the Potomac River in the following years. Thompson sold his Capitol Hill properties in 1670, including Duddington Manor, to Thomas Notley. The Duddington property was handed down over the generations to Daniel Carroll of Duddington. As European settlers arrived, they clashed with the Native Americans over grazing rights.
In 1697, the colonial-era Province of Maryland authorized the building of a fort within what is now Washington, D.C. The same year, the Conoy relocated to the west, near what is now The Plains, Virginia, and in 1699 they moved again to Conoy Island near Point of Rocks, Maryland.Harrison Williams, Legends of Loudoun, pp. 20–21.
Georgetown was established in 1751 when the Maryland General Assembly purchased sixty acres of land for the town from George Gordon and George Beall at the price of £280, while Alexandria, Virginia was founded in 1749.
Situated on the fall line, Georgetown was the farthest point upstream to which oceangoing boats could navigate the Potomac River. The strong flow of the Potomac kept a navigable channel clear year-round, and the daily tidal lift of the Chesapeake Bay raised the Potomac's elevation in its lower reach such that fully laden ocean-going ships could navigate easily, all the way to Chesapeake Bay. Around 1745, Gordon constructed a tobacco inspection house along the Potomac River.
Warehouses, wharves, and other buildings were added, and the settlement rapidly grew. Old Stone House in present-day Georgetown, was built in 1765 and is the oldest standing building in Washington, D.C. Georgetown later grew into a thriving port, facilitating trade and shipments of tobacco and other goods from the colonial-era Province of Maryland.
In 1780, with the economic and population growth in Georgetown, Georgetown University was founded, drawing students from as far away as the West Indies.
Founding Establishment
The United States capital was originally located in Philadelphia, beginning with the First and Second Continental Congress, followed by the Congress of the Confederation upon ratification of the first federal constitution. In June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall in Philadelphia to demand payment for their service during the American Revolutionary War. Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters.
In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey, on June 21, 1783.
On October 6, 1783, while still in Princeton, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole to consider a place for the permanent residence of Congress. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts motioned "that buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton or of the Potomac, near Georgetown, provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for a federal town". Dickinson's failure to protect the institutions of the national government was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787"Why the Articles of Confederation Failed", Thoughtco, May 8, 2020 In Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution, the delegates granted Congress the power:
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;Wikisource: Constitution of the United States of America
James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 43, also argued that the national capital needed to be distinct from the states, to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Constitution, however, does not select a specific site for the location of the new District.
Proposals from the legislatures of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia all offered territory for the national capital location. Northern states preferred a capital located in one of the nation's prominent cities, unsurprisingly, almost all of which were in the north. Southern states, on the other hand, preferred that the capital be located closer to their agricultural and slave-holding interests. The selection of the area around the Potomac River, which was the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, both slave states, was agreed upon between Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton had a proposal for the new federal government to take over debts accrued by the states during the American Revolutionary War. However, by 1790, Southern states had largely repaid their overseas debts. Hamilton's proposal would require Southern states to assume a share of Northern debt. Jefferson and Madison agreed to this proposal and, in return, secured a Southern location for the federal capital.
On December 23, 1788, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act, allowing it to cede land for the federal district. The Virginia General Assembly followed suit on December 3, 1789. The signing of the federal Residence Act on July 16, 1790, mandated that the site for the permanent seat of government, "not exceeding ten miles square" (100 square miles), be located on the "river Potomack, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern-Branch and Connogochegue". The "Eastern-Branch" is known today as the Anacostia River. The Conococheague Creek empties into the Potomac River upstream near Williamsport and Hagerstown, Maryland. The Residence Act limited to the Maryland side of the Potomac River the location of land that commissioners appointed by the President could acquire for federal use.
The Residence Act authorized President George Washington to select the actual location of the site. However, he wished to include Alexandria, Virginia, within the federal district. To accomplish this, the boundaries of the federal district would need to encompass an area on the Potomac that was downstream of the mouth of the Eastern Branch.
The U.S. Congress amended the Residence Act in 1791 to permit Alexandria's inclusion in the federal district. However, some members of Congress had recognized that Washington and his family owned property in and near Alexandria, which was just upstream from Mount Vernon, Washington's home and plantation. The amendment, therefore, contained a provision that prohibited the "erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac".Hazleton, p. 4(1) United States Statutes at Large: Volume 1: 1st Congress: 3rd Session; Chapter 17> XVII.—An Act to amend “An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the government of the United States"(2)
The final site was just below the fall line on the Potomac River, the furthest inland point navigable by boats. It included the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. The process of establishing the federal district, however, faced other challenges in the form of strong objections from landowners such as David Burnes, who owned a large, tract of land in the heart of the district. On March 30, 1791, Burns and eighteen other key landowners relented and signed an agreement with Washington, where they would be compensated for any land taken for public use, half of the remaining land would be distributed among the proprietors, and the other half to the public.