The correct answer is “contraband.”
Before the emancipation proclamation enslaved African Americans who were captured by Union forces were often treated as contraband.
Before Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, when the Union forces captured African American slaves, they were treated poorly as contraband. Black people did not have rights and although slavery was legal in the Southern states, in some places of the North, African Americans were not treated right. Many African Americans joined the Union troops were they performed tough jobs in the trenches.