[6] The campus was founded on the grounds of "Little Scotland", a former plantation in Elizabeth City County that is located on the Hampton River.

It overlooked Hampton Roads and was not far from Fortress Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp, that gathered formerly enslaved men and women who sought refuge with Union forces in the South during the first year of the war.

In 1861 the American Missionary Association (AMA) responded to the former slaves' need for education and hired Mary Smith Peake as its first teacher at the camp.

[7] Among the school's famous alumni is Booker T. Washington, an educator who was hired as the first principal at the Tuskegee Institute, which he developed for decades.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Union-held Fortress Monroe in southeastern Virginia at the mouth of Hampton Roads became a gathering point and safe haven of sorts for fugitive slaves.

The commander, General Benjamin F. Butler, determined they were "contraband of war", to protect them from being returned to slaveholders, who clamored to reclaim them.

"[8][9] Hampton University traces its roots to Mary S. Peake, who began in 1861 with outdoor classes for freedmen, whom she taught under what is now the landmark Emancipation Oak in the nearby area of Elizabeth City County.

Typical of historically black colleges, Hampton received much of its financial support in the years following the Civil War from the American Missionary Association (whose black and white leaders represented the Congregational and Presbyterian churches), other church groups, and former officers and soldiers of the Union Army.

One of the many Civil War veterans who gave substantial sums to the school was General William Jackson Palmer, a Union cavalry commander from Philadelphia.

[11] Fenner and the choir toured widely and were able to raise enough money through concerts to pay for the construction of Virginia Hall, the first dormitory for women at the Hampton Institute.

At the close of its first decade, the school reported a total admission in those ten years of 927 students, with 277 graduates, all but 17 of whom had become teachers.

[13] After Armstrong's death, Hampton's leaders continued to develop a highly successful external relations program that forged a network of devoted supporters.

By 1900, Hampton was the wealthiest school serving African Americans, largely due to its success in development and fundraising.

[15] The Hampton Institute Library School opened in 1925 and through its Negro Teacher-Librarian Program (NTLTP) trained and issued professional degrees to 183 black librarians.

Embracing much of Armstrong's philosophy, Washington built Tuskegee into a substantial school and became nationally famous as an educator, orator, and fund-raiser as well.

Together they enticed George Washington Carver to the Tuskegee Agriculture faculty upon his graduation with a master's degree from Iowa State University in 1896.

Carver provided such technical strength in agriculture that, in 1900, Washington assigned Greene to establish a demonstration of black business capability and economic independence off-campus in Tuskegee.

In 1878, Hampton established a formal education program for Native Americans to accommodate men who had been held as prisoners of war.

In 1875 at the end of the American Indian Wars, the United States Army sent seventy-two warriors from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo Nations, to imprisonment and exile in St. Augustine, Florida.

Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt supervised them at Fort Marion and began to arrange for their education in the English language and American culture.

At the end of the warriors' incarceration, Pratt convinced seventeen of the younger men to enroll at Hampton Institute for additional education.

In 1923, in the face of growing controversy over racial mingling, after the former Confederate states had disenfranchised blacks and imposed Jim Crow, the Native American program ended.

By 1971 the university offered 42 evening classes in programs including "Educational Psychology", "Introduction to Oral Communication", "Modern Mathematics", and "Playwriting", among others.

[22] In 1951, a 20-year-old student Benjamin Leroy Wigfall of Richmond, VA, became the youngest person ever to have a painting purchased by the Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts for $30 (~$352.00 in 2023).

In 2018, Hampton University students launched a protest calling for the administration to address several concerns they believed to be longstanding and urgent, including food quality, living conditions and the handling of sexual assault complaints.

[25] Hampton's president has sole discretion on how funds will be used but has committed to consulting with other university leaders on the best way to allocate the generous donation.

A 15-acre (61,000 m2) portion of the campus along the Hampton River, including many of the older buildings, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District.

[65] Hampton sports teams participate in NCAA Division I (FCS for football) in the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA).

In 2001, the Hampton basketball team won its first NCAA tournament game, when they beat Iowa State 58–57, in one of the largest upsets of all time.

The marching band has appeared at several notable events, including a Barack Obama Presidential Inauguration parade in Washington, DC.