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The Freedmen's Bureau Is
Established, 1865
An Act to establish a Bureau
for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees.
Be it enacted, That there is
hereby established in the War Department, to continue during the
present war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter, a bureau
of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands, to which shall be
committed, as hereinafter provided, the supervision and
management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all
subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or
from any district of country within the territory embraced in
the operations of the army, under such rules and regulations as
may be prescribed by the head of the bureau and approved by the
President. The said bureau shall be under the management and
control of a commissioner to be appointed by the President, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Sec. 2. That the Secretary of
War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as
he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and
supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and
their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he
may direct.
Sec. 3. That the President
may, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint
an assistant commissioner for each of the states declared to be
in insurrection, not exceeding ten in number, who shall, under
the direction of the commissioner, aid in the execution of the
provisions of this act; . . . And any military officer may be
detailed and assigned to duty under this act without increase of
pay or allowances.
Sec. 4. That the commissioner,
under the direction of the President, shall have authority to
set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such
tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have
been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have
acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to
every male Citizen, whether refugee or freedmen, as aforesaid,
there shall be assigned not more than forty acres
[editor's italics]of such land, and the person to whom it was so
assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the land
for the term of three years at an annual rent not exceeding six
per centum upon the value of such land, as it was appraised by
the state authorities in the year eighteen hundred and sixty,
for the purpose of taxation, and in case no such appraisal can
be found, then the rental shall be based upon the estimated
value of the land in said year, to be ascertained in such manner
as the commissioner may by regulation prescribe. At the end of
said term, or at any time during said term, the occupants of any
parcels so assigned may purchase the land and receive such title
thereto as the United States can convey, upon paying therefore
the value of the land, as ascertained and fixed for the purpose
of determining the annual rent aforesaid. .
U.S. Statutes at Large,
XIl1, pp.557 ff. This Bureau was set up to care for the freedmen
and for abandoned lands in the Southern states and was to
continue for one year. but on February 19, 1866, the act was
extended for a year under a bill which President Johnson vetoed.
In July of that year a supplementary freedmen's bureau act was
passed over his veto.
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Black women took the initiative
in attending schools established by the Freedmen's Bureau.
often such schools burned down; however, they were built
quickly. |
The Capacity of the Negro for Education,
1865
Their behalf that reading and
writing are to bring with them inestimable advantages, seems, in
its universality and intensity, like a mysterious instinct. All
who have been among them bear witness to this fact. As respects
aptitude to learn, there is similar unanimity of testimony. It
cannot be expected that a man or woman whose only
school-training heretofore has been that of the
plantation-school, or that children whose ancestors have been
slaves for generations back, should show the same quickness that
the children of New-England parents manifest.
The negro adult or child,
before he enters the Freedmen's school, has been at a very bad
preparatory school. Slave-masters are not good schoolmasters:
still,--due allowance made for parentage and training--it is not
too much to say, that the aptitude at acquiring the elements of
knowledge is, by the testimony of all our teachers, marvelous
under the circumstances. They do not write as if they found
calls for more patience than is demanded in our ordinary
Northern schools. And it is a most significant fact, that the
most enthusiastic are not the new teachers, but those who have
been at their posts from the beginning. It may be of interest to
some, to know that they do not find any difference, in respect
to intellect, between those of pure blood and those of mixed
blood.
The importance of the work of
educating the freedmen, can hardly be exaggerated. Its results
will reach into the future. . . . The great mass of white men,
who are now disloyal, will remain, for some time to come,
disaffected. Black men who are now friendly will remain so. And
to them must the country look in a large degree, as a
counteracting influence against the evil councils and designs of
the white freemen.
Report of the New England Freedmen's Aid Society,
1865. Given in Walter L. Fleming,
Documentary History of
Reconstruction. II, pp. 174-75. *
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update 22 July
2008 |
