| The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau or (mistakenly)
the Freedman's Bureau, was established March 3, 1865 by Congress and administered by the United States Department of War, and headed by Union general Oliver O. Howard, to aid distressed refugees of the United States Civil War, including former slaves and poor
white farmers. The Bureau also controlled confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, some border states, District of Columbia and Indian Territory.
Its main purpose was to help the newly-freed former slaves acquire some of the things that they had previously been denied,
such as at least a rudimentary education and an opportunity to learn jobs skills outside manual labor. Not wanting to face this
new potential competition, it was probably the least popular of all Reconstruction measures among white Southerners, and was one of the first to be abolished.
The Bureau was an important institution of the Reconstruction period. And it was the only organization that truly sought to
improve the lives of blacks through the entire South. Unfortunately, the Bureau never was able to achieve its full potential due
to budget cuts and limited jurisdiction. That didn’t stop Howard from trying though. His loose interpretation of the
legislation creating the Bureau allowed it to help blacks in many ways that were never thought possible. The Freedmen’s
Bureau was very helpful to many blacks in the poverty-stricken South. Indeed, no other organization would exist that would do as
much for African-Americans for more than 50 years.
The Freedmen's Bureau was fully operational only from June 1865 through December 1868
and was disbanded in 1872.
Achievements
Education
The most widely recognized among the achievements of the Freedmen’s Bureau are its accomplishments in the field of
education. The Bureau spent five million dollars to set up schools for blacks. By the end of 1865, more than 90,000 former slaves
were enrolled as students in public schools. Even more amazingly, attendance rates at the new schools for freedmen were between
79 and 82 percent (by contrast, attendance at New York State white
schools averaged 43 percent). By 1870, there were more than 1,000 schools for freedmen in the South. J. W. Alvord, an inspector
for the bureau, wrote that the freedmen "have the natural thirst for knowledge," aspire to "power and influence …
coupled with learning," and are excited by "the special study of books." Among the former slaves, both children and adults
indulged in this new opportunity to learn. One attendee was a 105 year old man named Cupid who "feared he was almost too old to
learn." However, he was soon "working diligently at the alphabet."
Land distribution
The Freedmen’s Bureau also played a considerable role in securing land for freed blacks. Howard was a strong promoter of
this cause. He advised Bureau agents to invest their own money to lease farms to freedmen and suggested subdividing farms and
building homes for freedmen willing to work for wages. One way the Bureau helped blacks get a stake in the land was to prevent
them from being defrauded. For instance, after the black troops had received their paychecks, a group of 260 of them decided to
buy a 10,690 acre (43 kmē) farm in Mississippi. The Bureau immediately sent a
special inspector to oversee the transaction. He soon found that the current treasurer who had been appointed by the group was
incompetent and corrupt. The Bureau recommended that this man be removed, and engineered a sound financial plan to protect the
farm, which included an agent from the Bureau who would supervise the financial transactions on the farm in order to protect the
freedmen from fraud. Howard also created a $52,000 trust fund for freedmen, which would be used to purchase land and resell the
sites to blacks. One of the purchases made with these funds was a 375 acre (1.5 kmē) tract of land near Washington D.C. The land was divided up into 359 lots and sold to freedmen
for $225 each. Many other similar purchases were engineered, which provided homes for countless former slaves.
Day-to-day duties
One of the more important, but rarely emphasized motives of the Bureau was to pursue everyday problems of the freedmen and
poor whites. These problems usually had to do with various needs for clothing, food, medicine, and other such aids. The Bureau
gave out 15 million rations of food to
blacks. Also, the Bureau set up a system where planters could borrow rations in order to feed freedmen they employed. Though the
Bureau set aside $350,000 for this service, only $35,000 was borrowed. The Bureau attempted to strengthen existing medical care
facilities as well as expand services into rural areas through newly established clinics. The Bureau succeeded in giving medical
care to over one million people.
Church establishment
The freedmen also sought the Bureau's aid in establishing churches. After the war,
freedmen had limited options for religious services because blacks were not given a formal religion in the South. Whites resisted
sharing their churches with the freedmen. This led to the Bureau’s role in making sure churches were to be built, and for
the space to be used by the freedmen. The Bureau was still able to put the freedmen in contact with Northern aid societies even
without any funds. This led to the collection of funds for land, buildings, teachers' salaries, and basic necessities such as
books and furniture.
Rebuilding family structures
Under slavery, a stable and healthy family structure was very scarce. However, a countless number of freed slaves attempted to
find their relatives at the end of the war. However, success was almost impossible to achieve. The Freedmen's Bureau agents did
their best to help freedmen reunite with their relatives and establish families in accordance with the regulations provided by
white America. The Bureau assigned its agents to investigate leads to the possible locations of family members and spouses. On
occasion, it sometimes provided transportation to reunite families. The Bureau had very little money due to the inadequate
legislation that had created it. Also, it was believed the responsibility to provide such services fell upon local authorities.
Freedmen and freedwomen turned to the Bureau for assistance in fixing domestic problems such as abandonment and divorce. Most cases brought before the Bureau
had very little information to start the investigation with. Although its efforts were noble, the Freedmen's Bureau could do
little to reverse the sociological effects of slavery and had almost no funds or
staff to support successful investigations to locate loved ones.
Violence and justice
The issue of violence and justice were not originally main concerns of the Freedmen's Bureau. However, local authorities
refused and failed in dealing with these two issues and this forced the Bureau to pick up any cases that were not taken by the
courts. After the war had ended, many Southern whites resented both their Northern occupiers and the newly freed blacks. With
civil outlets closed, the local Freedmen's Bureau office became a place where victims could go. The Bureau received letters from
both blacks and whites complaining of attacks, mistreatment, and other criminal actions. In dealing with these claims, the Bureau
had little real power, and though it did the best it could, the cases never were usually never addressed by the local
authorities.
External links
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