Of the many injustices perpetrated upon Blacks in the United States, the story of the Freedman’s Bureau would be absolutely heartbreaking had Black people not managed to survive that sordid chapter, as they did so many others.
On Jan. 20, Fort Bend County Libraries will host an American history presentation about the Freedmen’s Bureau at the George Memorial Library (1001 Golfview, Richmond, TX). The only question is, which Freedmen’s Bureau story will be told?
Certainly, the presentation will highlight the good, albeit brief, work the Freedmen’s Bureau (often written as “Freedman’s Bureau,” as well) was able to accomplish. But the story of the demise of the promising institution often receives a “treatment” that doesn’t fully highlight the dastardly, insidious acts meant to purposefully damage Black people’s economic health for generations.
According to the U.S. Senate’s website, “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. The Freedmen’s Bureau was to operate” during the Civil War and for one year thereafter, and also help establish schools, supervise contracts between freedmen and employers, and manage confiscated or abandoned lands.
An excerpt from the New York Times Magazine article on the subject of the racial wealth gap, written by Trymaine Lee as part of the “1619 Project,” offers more context regarding the absolute crime against Black humanity that was perpetrated in the name of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
“When legal slavery ended in 1865, there was great hope for formerly enslaved people. Between 1865 and 1870, the Reconstruction Amendments established birthright citizenship — making all Black people citizens and granting them equal protection under the law — and gave Black men the right to vote. There was also the promise of compensation. In January 1865, Gen. William Sherman issued an order reallocating hundreds of thousands of acres of white-owned land along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina for settlement by Black families in 40-acre plots. Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom, and the Freedman’s Savings Bank was formed to help four million formerly enslaved people gain financial freedom.
“When Lincoln was assassinated, Vice President Andrew Johnson effectively rescinded Sherman’s order by pardoning white plantation owners [and Confederate traitors] and returning to them the land on which 40,000 or so Black families had settled… The Freedmen’s Bureau, always meant to be temporary, was dismantled in 1872. More than 60,000 Black people deposited more than $1 million into the Freedman’s Savings Bank, but its all-white trustees began issuing speculative loans to white investors and corporations, and when it failed in 1874, many Black depositors lost much of their savings.”
The U.S. Department of the Treasury offers roughly the same information about white bank trustees squandering Black people’s literal life savings via bad investments. However, the Treasury article also includes words from Frederick Douglass that speak more to the version of events a growing body of historians and researchers believe to be more accurate than mere bad investments.
Describing the bank’s demise, Douglass described this institution with once lofty and humane goals as “the Black man’s cow but the white man’s milk.”
Johnson, who became president after Lincoln’s assassination and who oversaw the Freedman’s Bank’s destruction said, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.” His overseeing of the Freedman’s Bank’s destruction, then, was part of making sure his declaration became a reality.
Before the Bureau was closed, it did do some good, including providing food, clothing, medical care, and legal representation; promoting education; helping legalize marriages; and assisting Black soldiers and sailors in securing back pay, enlistment bounties, and pensions. The Bureau was also responsible for protecting freedmen and women from white domestic terrorist assaults by Southern whites. The Bureau set up offices in major cities in the 15 Southern and border states and the District of Columbia.
Dr. Nicholas Cox, chairman of the History Department at Houston Community College, will talk about the Freedmen’s Bureau “and the resources that were available through it for newly freed, formerly enslaved Blacks after the American Civil War” on Jan. 20 at the George Memorial Library.
Jeremiah Lathan is one Houston-area resident interested in learning more about this chapter of American history.
“My great-grandparents used to talk with such anger whenever they brought up the subject of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Freedman’s Bank,” said Lathan, a native of Georgia. “Let them tell it, white people just straight stole all Black people’s money, and that version was different than the little I had learned about the subject myself in school. Of course, I always believed my great grandparents’ version before any other, But I want to hear what this presenter has to say.”
Cox received his doctorate degree in U.S. History from the University of Houston. In addition to his work at Houston Community College, Cox has taught at the Bronx Academy of Letters in New York City, the University of Houston, and UH-Victoria. He is a member of the American Historical Association and the Texas History Association.
