Freedmen's Bureau

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Tanthalas39 (talk | contribs) at 16:35, 13 March 2008 (Reverted 3 edits by 147.72.94.2 identified as vandalism to last revision by 98.25.45.183. (TW)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A Bureau agent stands between an armed group of Southern whites and a group of freed slaves in this 1868 picture from Harpers' Weekly

On March 3, 1865, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Also known as the Freedmen's Bureau, it was a federal agency that was formed during Reconstruction to aid distressed refugees of the American Civil War. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill was initiated by Abraham Lincoln and intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War. It became primarily an agency to help the Freedmen (freed former slaves) in the South. The Bureau was part of the United States Department of War, and headed by Union General Oliver O. Howard. Fully operational[citation needed] from June 1865 through December 1868, it was disbanded by President Andrew Johnson.

Overview

On March 3, 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau was created by Congress to aid former slaves through education, health care and employment. $17,000 was spent to help establish 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals and also homes and food for past slaves. This bureau was also designed to help these former slaves find new jobs and improve their education and health.

At the end of the war, its main role was providing emergency food, housing and medical aid to refugees. It could also help find families. By late 1865, it focused its work on helping the Freedmen adjust to their conditions of freedom. Its main job was setting up work opportunities and supervising labor contracts. It soon became, in effect, a military court that handled legal issues. By 1866, it was attacked by former Confederate leaders for organizing Blacks against the ruling of used Blacks that the plantation lands of their former employers. Although some of their subordinate agents were unscrupulous or incompetent, the majority of local Bureau agents were hindered in carrying out their duties by the opposition of former Confederates, the lack of a military presence to enforce their authority, and an excessive amount of paperwork [1].

Howard University was also established in Washington in 1867 with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The university was named after General Oliver Howard, a Civil War hero and Bureau commissioner.

Nearly a year after the bureau was put into effect, the Radical Republicans who put the bureau into action, attempted to increase the powers of the bureau. President Andrew Johnson vetoed this request in February of 1866.

Achievements

Day-to-day duties

One of the more important but rarely emphasized motives of the Bureau was to help solve everyday problems of the freed slaves. They urgently needed clothing, food, medicine, communication with family members, and jobs. The Bureau gave out about 15 million rations of food to blacks[2]. 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 (10%) was borrowed.[citation needed]

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. Medical assistance and supplies as well as food were in short supply, and civil authorities often were reluctant to cooperate with the Bureau in aiding the former slaves. Despite the good intentions, efforts, and limited success of the Bureau, medical treatment of the freedmen was severely deficient. [3]

Gender roles

Freedmen's Bureau agents at first complained that freedwomen were not working as they should and were refusing to contract their labor. They attempted to make freedwomen work by insisting that their husbands sign contracts obligating the whole family to work on cotton, and by declaring that unemployed freedwomen should be treated as vagrants just as men were. The Bureau did allow some exceptions such as certain married women with employed husbands and some "worthy" women who had been widowed or abandoned and had large families of small children and thus could not work. "Unworthy" women, meaning the unruly and especially prostitutes, were the ones usually subjected to punishment for vagrancy. [4] Under slavery, marriages were informal; slavery disrupted many families as did wartime chaos. Many Freedmen attempted to find their spouses and children, and the Bureau agents helped. The Bureau had an informal regional communications system that allowed agents to send inquiries and provide answers. It sometimes provided transportation to reunite families. Freedmen and freedwomen turned to the Bureau for assistance in resolving issues of abandonment and divorce.

Education

Women sewing at the Freedmen's Union Industrial School, Richmond, Virginia

The most widely recognized among the achievements of the Freedmen’s Bureau are its accomplishments in the field of education. Prior to the Civil War, there was not a universal, state supported educational system in the southern states. Former slaves wanted such a system while the wealthier whites strongly opposed the idea. Former slaves had a strong desire to learn to read and write and worked hard to establish schools in their communities prior to the advent of the Freedmen's Bureau.

The first Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner was Oliver Otis Howard. He believed in government aided industrial and academic training and was known for his humanity and strong character. Through his leadership the bureau was divided into four divisions which included: Government Controlled Lands, Records, Financial Affairs, and Medical Affairs. Education was considered part of the Records division. Mr. Howard then turned over confiscated property, government buildings, books, and furniture to those superintendents to be used in the education of freedmen. In addition, he provided transportation, room and board for teachers.

Congress created The Freedmen's Bureau but did not fund it for the first year. By 1866, there were numerous missionary and aid societies working in conjunction with the Freedmen's Bureau to provide an education for former slaves. The primary focus of these groups was to raise funds to pay teachers and manage schools while the secondary focus was the day to day operation of individual schools. After 1866, some funds were appropriated by Congress to use in the Freedmen's schools but the real source of educational revenue for these schools came through a Congressional Act that gave the Freedmen's Bureau the power to seize Confederate property for educational use.

George Ruby, an African American, served as teacher and school administrator and as a traveling inspector for the bureau, observing local conditions, aiding in the establishment of black schools, and evaluating the performance of Bureau field officers. His efforts met with enthusiasm for education on the part of blacks and bitter opposition, including physical violence, from many planters and other whites. [5] Overall, 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. The Ku Klux Klan and various other similar groups had been created by that time. Attendance rates at the new schools for freedmen were between 79 and 82 percent. An important educator was Brigadier General Samuel Chapman Armstrong; as an agent of the Bureau, he created and led Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute.

The Freedmen's Bureau published their own Freedmen's text book which was referred to as a reader. The Freedmen's Bureau pushed their particular philosophy of education for African Americans through the south by controlling the curriculum and resources that were provided to these schools.

The Freedmen's readers represented the compromise reached between the groups wanting to educate African Americans and the white communities where these schools were located. These readers were written using forgiveness as a theme. African Americans were encouraged to forgive their former masters, understand the anger of their former masters, and live on good terms with them. Generally, these readers were sympathetic with the owners of former slaves without ever mentioning slavery. Furthermore, these readers emphasized what was called the bootstrap philosophy meaning that everyone had the ability to work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do better in life.

These readers had some traditional literacy lessons and other lessons aimed at former slaves which included among other things: the life and works of Abraham Lincoln, exercepts from the Bible which were focused on forgiveness, biographies of famous African American with emphasis on their piety, humbleness and industry, and full essays on loving your enemies, humility, the work ethic and temperance.

By 1870, there were more than 1,000 schools for freedmen in the South.[citation needed] 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. It helped African Americans find jobs and homes. About 150 schools were opened in Texas, and 4,300 schools in all were opened for African Americans. After the Bureau was abolished, its achievements collapsed under the weight of white violence against schools and teachers and the gutting of funds for all schools by Southern white Redeemer legislatures devoted to limited government.[6]

By 1871, northeners' interest in reconstructing the south had waned. Northeners were beginning to tire of the effort that reconstruction required and were ready for the south to take care of itself. In all of the southern states, there were now written provisions for universal publicly funded education. The financial underpinning of the schools run by the Freedmen's Bureau came from groups based in the north and they began to redirect their money toward universities and colleges founded to educate African American leaders.

The building and opening of schools of higher learning for African Americans coincided with the shift in focus for the Freedmen's Aid Societies from an elementary education for all African Americans to a high school and college education for African American leaders. Both of these events worked in concert with concern on the part of white officials working with African Americans in the south. These officials were concerned about the lack of a moral or financial foundation seen in the African American community and traced that lack of foundation back to slavery.

Generally, they found that African Americans had no sense of marital fidelity or temperance and had not been taught any wise financial strategies. Different heads of local American Missionary Associations which sponsored various educational and religious efforts for African Americans, Samuel Chapman Armstrong of the Hampton Institute and Booker T. Washington began the call for institutions of higher learning so black students could leave home and "live in an atmosphere conducive not only to scholarship but to culture and refinement (Morris, 1981, p. 160.)"

Most of these colleges, universities and normal schools combined what they believed were the best fundamentals of a college with that of the home. At the majority of these schools students were expected to bathe a prescribed number of times per week, maintain an orderly living space, and present a particular appearance. At many of these institutions, Christian principles and practices were also part of the daily regime.

Church establishment

The freedmen sought the Bureau's aid in establishing churches. After the war, control over existing churches was a highly contentious issue; Northern Methodists seized control of Southern Methodist buildings in some cities. Whereas whites and blacks had worshiped together before the war, now they mutually agreed[citation needed] to separate. The Bureau, with close ties to Northern Methodist and other churches, facilitated new buildings, though it did not spend any government money on churches. Northern mission societies collected of funds for land, buildings, teachers' salaries, and basic necessities such as books and furniture.[7]

Opposition

Poster attacking Freedmen's Bureau

Most of the assistant commissioners, realizing that blacks would not receive fair trials in the civil courts, tried to handle black cases in their own Bureau courts. Southern whites objected loudly and said this was unconstitutional. In Alabama, state and county judges were commissioned as Bureau agents. They were to try cases involving blacks with no distinctions on racial grounds. If a judge refused, martial law could be instituted in his district. All but three judges accepted their unwanted commissions, and the governor urged compliance.[8]

Perhaps the most difficult region was Louisiana's Caddo-Bossier district. It had not experienced wartime devastation or Union occupation. Understaffed and weakly supported by federal troops, well-meaning Bureau agents found their investigations blocked and authority undermined at every turn by recalcitrant planters. Murders of freedmen were common, and suspects in these cases generally went unprosecuted. Bureau agents did manage to negotiate labor contracts, build schools and hospitals,[citation needed] and provide the freedmen a sense of their own humanity through the agents' willingness to help.[9]

In 1872, Congress terminated the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The Depression of 1873, combined with the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, drove many northerners out of the south. By 1877, white southerners had regained control of the south and repealed most of the legislation put into place by reconstruction replacing it with laws that were punitive to the freedmen.

Notes

  1. ^ Cimbala 1992
  2. ^ Goldhaber 1992
  3. ^ Pearson 2002
  4. ^ Farmer-Kaiser, 2004
  5. ^ Crouch 1997
  6. ^ Goldhaber 1992
  7. ^ Morrow 1954
  8. ^ Foner 1988
  9. ^ Smith 2000

See also

Bibliography

Primary sources

General

  • Bentley George R. A History of the Freedmen's Bureau (1955)
  • Carpenter, John A.; Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (1999) full biography of Bureau leader
  • Cimbala, Paul A. and Trefousse, Hans L. (eds.) The Freedmen's Bureau: Reconstructing the American South After the Civil War. 2005. essays by scholars
  • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, "The Freedmen's Bureau" (1901) by leading black scholar
  • Foner Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) general history
  • Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. 1979. Winner of Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
  • McFeely, William S. Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard and the Freedmen. 1994.

Education

  • Anderson, James D. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (1988)
  • Bond, H. (1934). The education of the negro in the American social order. New York: Prentice-Hall.
  • Butchart, Ronald E. Northern Schools, Southern Blacks, and Reconstruction: Freedmen's Education, 1862-1875 (1980)
  • Crouch, Barry A. "Black Education in Civil War and Reconstruction Louisiana: George T. Ruby, the Army, and the Freedmen's Bureau" Louisiana History 1997 38(3): 287-308. Issn: 0024-6816
  • Goldhaber, Michael. "A Mission Unfulfilled: Freedmen's Education in North Carolina, 1865-1870" Journal of Negro History 1992 77(4): 199-210. Issn: 0022-2992
  • Jones, Jacqueline. Soldiers of Light and Love: Northern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873 U of North Carolina Press 1980
  • Morris, Robert C. Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction: The Education of Freedmen in the South, 1861-1870 1981.
  • Overview of reconstruction. Retrieved October 23, 2007. www.graves.k12.ky.us/schools/GCHS/sbradley/documents/Reconstruction.htm.
  • Richardson, Joe M. Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 U of Georgia Press, 1986
  • Span, Christopher M. "'I Must Learn Now or Not at All': Social and Cultural Capital in the Educational Initiatives of Formerly Enslaved African Americans in Mississippi, 1862-1869," The Journal of African American History, 2002 pp 196-222
  • Swint, Henry Lee. The Northern Teacher in the South: 1862-1870 (New York, 1967).
  • Williams, Heather Andrea; "'Clothing Themselves in Intelligence': The Freedpeople, Schooling, and Northern Teachers, 1861-1871" The Journal of African American History 2002. pp 372+.
  • Williams, Heather Andrea. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom U of North Carolina Press, 2006

Specialized studies

  • Bethel, Elizabeth . "The Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama," Journal of Southern History Vol. 14, No. 1, Feb., 1948 pp. 49-92 online at JSTOR
  • Cimbala, Paul A. "On the Front Line of Freedom: Freedmen's Bureau Officers and Agents in Reconstruction Georgia, 1865-1868". Georgia Historical Quarterly 1992 76(3): 577-611. Issn: 0016-8297.
  • Cimbala, Paul A. Under the Guardianship of the Nation: the Freedmen's Bureau and the Reconstruction of Georgia, 1865-1870 U. of Georgia Press, 1997.
  • Click, Patricia C. Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, 1862-1867 (2001)]
  • Crouch, Barry. The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Texans (1992)
  • Crouch; Barry A. "The 'Chords of Love': Legalizing Black Marital and Family Rights in Postwar Texas" The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 79, 1994
  • Durrill, Wayne K. "Political Legitimacy and Local Courts: 'Politicks at Such a Rage' in a Southern Community during Reconstruction" in Journal of Southern History, Vol. 70 #3, 2004 pp 577-617
  • Farmer-Kaiser, Mary. "’Are They Not in Some Sorts Vagrants?’ Gender and the Efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau to Combat Vagrancy in the Reconstruction South” Georgia Historical Quarterly 2004 88(1): 25-49. Issn: 0016-8297
  • Finley, Randy. From Slavery to Uncertain Future: the Freedmen's Bureau in Arkansas, 1865-1869 U. of Arkansas Press, 1996.
  • Gerteis, Louis S. From Contraband to Freedmen: Federal Policy toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865 1973.
  • Kolchin, Peter. First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama's Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction 1972.
  • Lieberman, Robert C. "The Freedmen's Bureau and the Politics of Institutional Structure" Social Science History 1994 18(3): 405-437. Issn: 0145-5532
  • Lowe, Richard. "The Freedman's Bureau and Local Black Leadership" Journal of American History 1993 80(3): 989-998. Issn: 0021-8723
  • Morrow Ralph Ernst. "The Northern Methodists in Reconstruction". Mississippi Valley Historical Review 41 (September 1954): 197-218. in JSTOR
  • May J. Thomas. "Continuity and Change in the Labor Program of the Union Army and the Freedmen's Bureau". Civil War History 17 (September 1971): 245-54.
  • Oubre, Claude F. Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership 1978.
  • Pearson, Reggie L. "'There Are Many Sick, Feeble, and Suffering Freedmen': the Freedmen's Bureau's Health-care Activities During Reconstruction in North Carolina, 1865-1868" North Carolina Historical Review 2002 79(2): 141-181. Issn: 0029-2494 .
  • Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the Civil War'. Russell & Russell. (1953)
  • Richter, William L. Overreached on All Sides: The Freedmen's Bureau Administrators in Texas, 1865-1868 1991.
  • Ransom, Roger L. Conflict and Compromise. Cambridge University Press. 1989. economic history
  • Oubre, Claude F. Forty Acres and a Mule. Louisiana State University Press. Baton Rouge and London. 1978.
  • Rodrigue, John C. "Labor Militancy and Black Grassroots Political Mobilization in the Louisiana Sugar Region, 1865-1868" in Journal of Southern History, Vol. 67 #1, 2001 pp 115-45
  • Schwalm, Leslie A. "'Sweet Dreams of Freedom': Freedwomen's Reconstruction of Life and Labor in Lowcountry South Carolina Journal of Women's History, Vol. 9 #1, 1997 pp 9-32
  • Smith, Solomon K. "The Freedmen's Bureau in Shreveport: the Struggle for Control of the Red River District" Louisiana History 2000 41(4): 435-465. Issn: 0024-6816
  • Williamson, Joel. After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina during Reconstruction, 1861-1877 1965.
  • Freedmen's Bureau in Texas


External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freedmen%27s_Bureau&oldid=197990037"