Following their War of 1812 victory at the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814, the British Army entered Washington, D.C., burning down buildings, including the White House, in the Burning of Washington

 

As Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, the U.S. Capitol dome was still under construction. Several weeks later, on April 12, the Civil War commenced with the Battle of Fort Sumter.

 

Aerial view of Washington's historic streetcars at the corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of the Willard Hotel in 1939

 

March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in 1963

Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people, also known as the Conoy, inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans arrived and colonized the reguion in the early 17th century. One group known as the Nacotchtank, also called the Nacostines by Catholic missionaries, maintained settlements around the Anacostia River in present-day Washington, D.C. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the Piscataway people to relocate, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland.[1]

Prior to the establishment of Washington, D.C. as the nation's capital in 1800, the Second Continental Congress was based in Philadelphia on five separate occasions (May 1775-July 1776, December 1776-February 1777, March 1777-September 1777, July 1778, July 1778-March 1781, and March 1781-June 1783) and briefly in five other locations, including York, Pennsylvania (September 1777), Princeton, New Jersey (1783), Annapolis, Maryland (November 1783 to August 1784), Trenton, New Jersey (November to December 1784), and New York City (January 1785 to March 1789).

On October 6, 1783, after the capital was forced by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 to relocate to Princeton, New Jersey, Congress resolved to consider a new location for it.[2] The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts moved "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".[3]

In his Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety.[4] The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security.[5]

Article One, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution permits the establishment of a "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".[6] However, the constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In the Compromise of 1790, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson agreed that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the Southern United States.[7][a]

On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, who signed the bill into law on July 16. Formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km2).[8][b]

Two preexisting settlements were included in the territory: the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751,[9] and the port city of Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1749.[10] In 1791–92, a team led by Andrew Ellicott, including Ellicott's brothers Joseph and Benjamin and African-American astronomer Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point; many of these stones are still standing.[11][12]

A new federal city was then constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The same day, the federal district was named Columbia, a feminine form of Columbus, which was a poetic name for the United States commonly used at that time.[13][14] Congress held its first session there on November 17, 1800.[15][16]

Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which officially organized the district and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. The area within the district was organized into two counties, the County of Washington to the east and north of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west and south.[17] After the Act's passage, citizens in the district were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which ended their representation in Congress.[18]

On August 24–25, 1814, during the War of 1812, British forces invaded and raided Washington, D.C. in what is known as the Burning of Washington. In the attack, the U.S.Capitol, Department of the Treasury, and White House were burned and gutted.[19] Most government buildings were repaired quickly; however, the Capitol was largely under construction at the time and was not completed in its current form until 1868.[20]

In the 1830s, the district's southern territory of Alexandria declined economically due in part to neglect of it by Congress.[21] Alexandria was a major market in the domestic slave trade and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in the district, further depressing the local economy. Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to take back the land it had donated to form the district through a process known as retrocession.[22]

The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846, to accept the return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress went further, agreeing to return all territory that Virginia had ceded to the district during its formation. This left the district's area consisting only of the portion originally donated by Maryland.[21] Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the district, although not slavery itself.[23]

The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 led to the expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the district's population, including a large influx of freed slaves.[24] President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, which ended slavery in the district, freeing about 3,100 slaves in the district nine months prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.[25] In 1868, Congress granted the district's African American male residents the right to vote in municipal elections.[24]

By 1870, the district's population had grown 75% from the previous census to nearly 132,000 residents.[26] Despite the city's growth, however, Washington still had dirt roads and the city lacked basic sanitation. Some members of Congress suggested moving the capital further west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider the proposal.[27]

Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which repealed the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, abolished Washington County, and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia.[28]

After the reorganization, in 1873, President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd as Governor of the District of Columbia. Shepherd authorized large-scale projects that greatly modernized the city but ultimately bankrupted the district government. In 1874, Congress replaced the territorial government with an appointed three-member board of commissioners.[29]

In 1888, the city's first motorized streetcars began service. Their introduction generated growth in areas of the district beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries, leading to an expansion of the district over the next few decades.[30] Georgetown's street grid and other administrative details were formally merged to those of the City of Washington in 1895.[31] However, the city had poor housing conditions and strained public works, leading it to become the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century.[32]

Increased federal spending as a result of the New Deal in the 1930s led to the construction of new government buildings, memorials, and museums in the district,[33] though the chairman of the House Subcommittee on District Appropriations Ross A. Collins from Mississippi justified cuts to funds for welfare and education for local residents, saying that "my constituents wouldn't stand for spending money on niggers."[34]

World War II led to an expansion of federal employees in the city;[35] by 1950, the district's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents.[26]

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the district three votes in the Electoral College for the election of president and vice president, but still not affording the city's residents representation in Congress.[36]

After the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in the district, primarily in the U Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, which were predominantly black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops and Washington, D.C. Army National Guardsmen stopped the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned, and rebuilding from the riots was not completed until the late 1990s.[37]

In 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act providing for an elected mayor and 13-member council for the district.[38] In 1975, Walter Washington became the district's first elected and first black mayor.[39]

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