Freedmen's Bureau

The Freedmen’s Bureau was an agency of the United States War Department created in 1865. It’s role was to assist freed slaves by providing them with food, education, jobs, land, and protection.

The Freedmen’s Bureau existed from 1865 until 1872, during Reconstruction, when the former Confederate states were gradually brought back into the Union following the American Civil War. Despite significant opposition, the Freedmen’s Bureau was able to distribute food, build over 1,000 schools, provide medical assistance, construct hospitals, and assist in negotiating labor contracts for freed slaves.

The Freedmen’s Bureau struggled to perform its duties due to lack of funding and heavy opposition from southern whites and President Andrew Johnson. It was much less successful in ensuring freed slaves had fair court trials and was widely unable to assist freed slaves in securing land ownership, the surest path to a successful life at that time. President Johnson instead granted confiscated land back to southern landowners, whom he had widely pardoned, leaving little land left for freed slaves.

However, several of the schools the bureau built, including Howard University, still operate today.

The Freedmen’s Bureau, officially named the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was created when a bill proposed by Rep. T. D. Eliot of Massachusetts was signed into law on March 3, 1865. Originally, the bureau was only supposed to operate for one year, but a second act in 1866 removed this limitation.

Over the course of its existence, the Freedmen’s Bureau faced fierce opposition from southern whites and President Johnson. Because of this, the bureau was often underfunded and understaffed. It was dismantled by Congress in 1872 in response to still-intense hostility against the bureau.

In the end, the Freedmen’s Bureau failed to make significant progress toward racial equality, but it did have a positive impact on the lives of many freed slaves. Possibly the bureau’s longest-lasting achievements are some of the black schools built by the Freedmen’s Bureau that still exist today, such as Howard University in Washington, DC, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

The man put in charge of the Freedmen’s Bureau was former Union military general Oliver Otis Howard. Howard University, built by the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1867, is named after the general and he served as the university’s third president from 1869 until 1874.

Today, the Freedmen’s Bureau is remembered primarily through the schools it built and as a notable part of Reconstruction.

Maryville College's Anderson Hall, built in 1870 and funded partly with Freedmen's Bureau money, exemplifies Reconstruction as both an era and a process. In 1867, Maryville College became one of the only schools in the South to admit women and men regardless of race. pic.twitter.com/l6eZWhY0hL

— Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) April 17, 2019

The first African American woman to earn an M.D. degree in the United States, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler came to Richmond to offer care through the Freedmen’s Bureau. Today, we celebrate her life and legacy. https://t.co/l3pTGpLYZ3

— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) March 30, 2019

• Reconstruction
• American Civil War
• Andrew Johnson
• welfare
• freedman

The Freedmen’s Bureau was created in 1865 to provide assistance primarily to whom?

A. Civil War veterans
B. Freed slaves
C. Southern landowners
D. European immigrants