Central Lunatic Asylum Map

The asylum for the colored insane occupied the annex of Howard's Grove Hospital, the former Confederate hospital located just outside of Richmond, Virginia. The federal government converted it to an all-purpose hospital for formerly enslaved Africans. The Commonwealth of Virginia paid for substantial construction needed to rehabilitate the decaying temporary structures at Howard's Grove to make it a functional medical/psychiatric hospital.

As part of the Federal government's abbreviated efforts to reconstruct the lives of formerly enslaved Africans in America, General Edward Canby, Virginia's military governor, required the state agree Howard's Grove could only be used as a temporary lunatic asylum. Although Canby insisted that only the insane should be admitted, the colored insane asylum continued to admit and house individuals suffering from a wide range of severe medical, social, and economic problems.

 

Credit: F.W. Beers, 1877