The Freedmen’s Bureau

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 The Freedmen’s Bureau After slavery was abolished, people all over the world rejoiced and started working to better their own lot in life. They sought land, financial stability, education, and the right to vote, among other things that had been denied to them for a long time. They desired to exercise their right to vote in their own country, be reunited with family, and seize the chance to start their own independent lives. They were, nonetheless, met with the rage of Southerners who were vanquished but unforgiving, determined to maintain Black people as an oppressed and hated underclass. In March 1865, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also referred to as the Freedmen's Bureau, in response to the massive destruction in the South and the grave circumstances of the liberated population. Lincoln gave the agency his approval and granted it a one-year charter. The Freedmen's Bureau undertook a number of programs to facilitate the escape from slavery. It provided meal delivery services throughout the South to both Black and White individuals. It aided those who had been set free in obtaining employment contracts, which was a crucial step in replacing enslavement with pay work. In addition to spending a great deal of effort on education—building several public schools where impoverished White people and freedmen could obtain both basic and higher education—it also assisted in reuniting families of freedmen. The Freedmen's Bureau left behind reputable universities including Fisk University, Hampton University, and Dillard University. Christian groups like the American Missionary Association (AMA), which had long supported abolition, provided assistance to the Freedmen's Bureau in this quest. The American Medical Association (AMA) established and managed schools for emancipated slaves in the postwar South by utilizing the experience and expertise it had gained from working in missions in Africa and with Native American tribes. Although both White and Black men and women taught in these institutions, the opportunity was especially significant for the women who participated (Figure 16.5). During that period, women were not allowed to enroll in most universities or other higher education institutions, among other chances. These women's participation in these schools gave them access to possibilities that they may not have otherwise had. Furthermore, the fact that they frequently put their lives in danger to labor in these Southern institutions showed the country that women might be indispensable in American civic life. Instigating deep dismay and animosity among the White communities in the South, the schools founded by the AMA and the Freedmen's Bureau were occasionally the focus of violent acts. The Freedmen's Bureau was controversial both because of its existence and its operations. Opponents of this kind of federal government engagement, including racists, criticized it as a stupid endeavor that promoted Black people's indolence and a waste of taxpayer dollars. President Johnson opposed the rechartering of the agency in 1866 after Congress renewed its charter, firmly believing that the task of restoring the Union had been finished. Radical Republicans persisted in their support for the bureau, which set up a competition between Congress and the president that grew more intense over the course of the following several years. Divergent opinions on the appropriate function of the federal government played a part in this disagreement. Radical Republicans thought that the federal government could guarantee that those who had been set free would have a better day. Johnson was among those who rejected the idea that the government should have such a role.