Publisher's Synopsis
The United States experienced a period of extreme transition after the termination of the Civil War, especially in the South. As the former reality of slave labor and the once untouchable "King Cotton" became a mere memory of the past, newly-freed African Americans attempted to create lives for themselves under the promise of emancipation. In order to assuage the difficult transition from slavery to freedom, the federal government established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, now known as the Freedmen's Bureau, on March 3, 1865. Congress created the Freedmen's Bureau as a temporary extension of the War Department, originally intending the Bureau to last for one year. Some of the Bureau's main duties included the provision of food, clothing, medicine, and rations for freedmen and white southerners, the legitimization of marriage certificates and labor contracts, the establishment of freedmen schools, and the sequestration of confiscated and abandoned Confederate lands. Due to the large amount of work and organization that the Freedmen's Bureau required, Congress appointed General Oliver O. Howard as the Chief Commissioner of the Bureau in May 1865. Although General Howard established the Bureau's main headquarters in Washington, D.C., assistant commissioners and subordinate officers worked in various local and field offices throughout the southern and border states. These officers handled most of the day-to-day interactions with freedmen. Even during its most active years, the Freedmen's Bureau faced a multitude of difficulties. White resistance, insufficient resources, and a lack of support from the president severely limited the Bureau and its effects. White southerners often ostracized and antagonized overworked Bureau officers as a means of demoralizing the Freedmen's Bureau's efforts. President Andrew Johnson expressed an outright opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau, making Congress the primary reason for the Bureau's existence six years after it was supposed to terminate. This guide will aid researchers in accessing the records of the Freedmen's Bureau.
