USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Bureau also supplied necessities such as food and clothing, operated hospitals and temporary camps, and witnessed labor contracts between freedmen and plantation owners or other employers. Funding limitations and deeply held racist attitudes forced the Bureau to close in 1872.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Bureau’s records (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands), kept from 1865-1872, contain a wide range of data about the African American experience during slavery and freedom. Therefore, they are a valuable source for the black family historian. Refugees include many in the local white population.

Detailed explanation-4: -Contents. The Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War.