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Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a federal agency after the War, from 1865 to November 1872, to direct provisions, clothing, and fuel for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children.
In 1863, the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was established. Two years later, as a result of the inquiry[page needed] the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was passed, which established the Freedmen's Bureau as initiated by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War. The Bureau became a part of the United States Department of War, as Congress provided no funding for it. The War Department was the only agency with funds the Freedmen's Bureau could use and which had an existing presence in the South.
Headed by Union Army General Oliver O. Howard, the Bureau started operations in 1865. From the beginning, its representatives found its tasks very difficult, in part because Southern legislatures passed Black Codes that restricted movement, conditions of labor, and other civil rights of African Americans, nearly replicating the conditions of slavery. Also, the Freedmen's Bureau only controlled a limited amount of arable land.
The Bureau's powers were expanded to help African Americans find family members from whom they had become separated during the war. It arranged to teach them to read and write—skills considered critical by the freedmen themselves as well as by the government. Bureau agents also served as legal advocates for African Americans in both state and federal courts, mostly in cases dealing with family issues. The Bureau encouraged former major planters to rebuild their plantations and pay wages to their previously enslaved workers. It kept an eye on the contracts between the newly free laborers and planters, given that few freedmen had yet gained adequate reading skills, and pushed whites and blacks to work together in a free-labor market as employers and employees rather than as masters and slaves.
In 1866 Congress renewed the charter for the Bureau. President Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had succeeded to the office following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, vetoed the bill, arguing that the Bureau encroached on states' rights, relied inappropriately on the military in peacetime, gave blacks help that poor whites had never had, and would ultimately prevent freed slaves from becoming self-sufficient by rendering them dependent on public assistance. Though the 39th United States Congress—controlled by Radical Republicans—overrode Johnson's veto, by 1869 Southern Democrats in Congress had deprived the Bureau of most of its funding, and as a result it had to cut much of its staff. By 1870 the Bureau had been weakened further due to the rise of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) violence across the South; members of the KKK and other terrorist organizations, attacked both blacks and sympathetic white Republicans, including teachers. Northern Democrats also opposed the Bureau's work, painting it as a program that would make African Americans "lazy".
In 1872 Congress abruptly abandoned the program, refusing to approve renewal legislation. It did not inform Howard, whom U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant had transferred to Arizona to settle hostilities between the Apache and settlers. Grant's Secretary of War William W. Belknap was hostile to Howard's leadership and authority at the Bureau. Belknap aroused controversy among Republicans by his reassignment of Howard.
The Bureau mission was to help solve everyday problems of the newly freed slaves, such as obtaining food, medical care, communication with family members, and jobs. Between 1865 and 1869, it distributed 15 million rations of food to freed African Americans and 5 million rations to impoverished whites, and set up a system by which planters could borrow rations in order to feed freedmen they employed. Although the Bureau set aside $350,000 for this latter service, only $35,000 (10%) was borrowed by planters.
The Bureau's humanitarian efforts had limited success. Medical treatment of the freedmen was severely deficient,[page needed] as few Southern doctors, all of whom were white, would treat them. Much infrastructure had been destroyed by the war, and people had few means of improving sanitation. Blacks had little opportunity to become medical personnel. Travelers unknowingly carried epidemics of cholera and yellow fever along the river corridors, which broke out across the South and caused many fatalities, especially among the poor.
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Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a federal agency after the War, from 1865 to November 1872, to direct provisions, clothing, and fuel for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children.
In 1863, the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was established. Two years later, as a result of the inquiry[page needed] the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was passed, which established the Freedmen's Bureau as initiated by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War. The Bureau became a part of the United States Department of War, as Congress provided no funding for it. The War Department was the only agency with funds the Freedmen's Bureau could use and which had an existing presence in the South.
Headed by Union Army General Oliver O. Howard, the Bureau started operations in 1865. From the beginning, its representatives found its tasks very difficult, in part because Southern legislatures passed Black Codes that restricted movement, conditions of labor, and other civil rights of African Americans, nearly replicating the conditions of slavery. Also, the Freedmen's Bureau only controlled a limited amount of arable land.
The Bureau's powers were expanded to help African Americans find family members from whom they had become separated during the war. It arranged to teach them to read and write—skills considered critical by the freedmen themselves as well as by the government. Bureau agents also served as legal advocates for African Americans in both state and federal courts, mostly in cases dealing with family issues. The Bureau encouraged former major planters to rebuild their plantations and pay wages to their previously enslaved workers. It kept an eye on the contracts between the newly free laborers and planters, given that few freedmen had yet gained adequate reading skills, and pushed whites and blacks to work together in a free-labor market as employers and employees rather than as masters and slaves.
In 1866 Congress renewed the charter for the Bureau. President Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had succeeded to the office following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, vetoed the bill, arguing that the Bureau encroached on states' rights, relied inappropriately on the military in peacetime, gave blacks help that poor whites had never had, and would ultimately prevent freed slaves from becoming self-sufficient by rendering them dependent on public assistance. Though the 39th United States Congress—controlled by Radical Republicans—overrode Johnson's veto, by 1869 Southern Democrats in Congress had deprived the Bureau of most of its funding, and as a result it had to cut much of its staff. By 1870 the Bureau had been weakened further due to the rise of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) violence across the South; members of the KKK and other terrorist organizations, attacked both blacks and sympathetic white Republicans, including teachers. Northern Democrats also opposed the Bureau's work, painting it as a program that would make African Americans "lazy".
In 1872 Congress abruptly abandoned the program, refusing to approve renewal legislation. It did not inform Howard, whom U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant had transferred to Arizona to settle hostilities between the Apache and settlers. Grant's Secretary of War William W. Belknap was hostile to Howard's leadership and authority at the Bureau. Belknap aroused controversy among Republicans by his reassignment of Howard.
The Bureau mission was to help solve everyday problems of the newly freed slaves, such as obtaining food, medical care, communication with family members, and jobs. Between 1865 and 1869, it distributed 15 million rations of food to freed African Americans and 5 million rations to impoverished whites, and set up a system by which planters could borrow rations in order to feed freedmen they employed. Although the Bureau set aside $350,000 for this latter service, only $35,000 (10%) was borrowed by planters.
The Bureau's humanitarian efforts had limited success. Medical treatment of the freedmen was severely deficient,[page needed] as few Southern doctors, all of whom were white, would treat them. Much infrastructure had been destroyed by the war, and people had few means of improving sanitation. Blacks had little opportunity to become medical personnel. Travelers unknowingly carried epidemics of cholera and yellow fever along the river corridors, which broke out across the South and caused many fatalities, especially among the poor.