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The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, [1] was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former slaves) in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a federal agency after the War, from ...
The Freedmen's Bureau was created in 1865 during the Lincoln administration, by an act of Congress called the Freedman's Bureau Bill. [5] It was passed on March 3, 1865, in order to aid former slaves through food and housing, oversight, education, health care, and employment contracts with private landowners.
The (second) Second Freedmen's Bureau bill, passed in July 1866 over Johnson's veto, stipulated the freedpeople whose lands had been restored to Confederate owners could pay $1.25 (~$26.00 in 2023) per acre for up to 20 acres of land in St. Luke and St. Helena parishes of Beaufort County, South Carolina.
Championed by General Oliver O. Howard, chief of the Freedmen's Bureau, and with support from Thaddeus Stevens and William Fessenden, the Southern Homestead Act was proposed to Congress, and eventually passed, and signed into law by President Andrew Johnson on June 21, 1866, going into effect immediately.
To help alleviate their socio-economic conditions, the Republican-controlled U. S. Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau, passing an act of incorporation and a charter for the Freedman's Saving and Trust Company, which was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 510). [3] [8]
After the Civil War, Delany went to the South, settling in South Carolina. There he worked for the Freedmen's Bureau and became politically active, including in the Colored Conventions Movement. Delany ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor as an Independent Republican. He was appointed as a trial judge, but he was removed following a scandal.
Later, Johnson vetoed a Civil Rights Act and a second Freedmen's Bureau bill. The Senate and the House each mustered the two-thirds majority necessary to override both vetoes. [5] At an impasse with Congress, Johnson offered himself directly to the American public as a "tribune of the people".
This extended his work as an abolitionist. The Freedmen's Bureau was to help house, feed, clothe, educate, and provide medical care to newly-freed slaves in the South after the Civil War. [46] [47] In some instances, Bureau staff helped freedmen to locate and reunite with relatives who had either fled north or who had been sold away during ...