The Brenham Heritage Museum presents Freedom Colonies: Tracing Historic Black Settlements of Washington County. This wonderful exhibit explores the remarkable stories of former slaves and their descendants who established entire local communities following their Emancipation. Often times, the Freedom Colonies centered around a church and school, and residents might work in the city or may have started an African-American farming community. The people of the Freedom Colonies were not only free for the first time in generations, they were trying to forge a new life entirely from scratch. These locations, often little-publicized when they existed, are all but forgotten parts of Washington County’s history today.
