— Ch. 1 · Establishment And Operations —
Freedmen's Bureau.
~4 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands opened its doors on the 3rd of March 1865. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill creating this agency just days before his assassination. Congress provided no initial funding for the new organization. The War Department became the only entity with money to support the bureau's work. Union Army General Oliver O. Howard took command of operations in 1865. Southern legislatures immediately passed Black Codes that restricted movement and labor conditions for freed people. These laws nearly replicated the harsh conditions of slavery itself. The bureau controlled only a limited amount of arable land during these early months. Representatives found their tasks extremely difficult from the very beginning.
Humanitarian Relief Efforts
Between 1865 and 1869 the bureau distributed fifteen million rations of food to freed African Americans. Five million additional rations went to impoverished white citizens across the South. Planters could borrow rations through a system designed to feed workers they employed. Only ten percent of the three hundred fifty thousand dollars set aside was actually borrowed by planters. Medical treatment remained severely deficient throughout the region. Few Southern doctors would treat black patients despite the desperate need. Cholera and yellow fever epidemics broke out along river corridors causing many fatalities. Travelers unknowingly carried diseases that spread rapidly among poor communities. Infrastructure had been destroyed by war leaving few means to improve sanitation. Blacks had little opportunity to become medical personnel themselves.