Freedmen's Bureau, 1868

Man representing the Freedman's Bureau stands between armed groups of Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans. In the United States, the terms freedmen and freedwomen refer to former slaves emancipated during and after the American Civil War, by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. To help freedmen transition from slavery to freedom, President Abraham Lincoln created the Freedmen's Bureau, which assigned agents throughout the former Confederate states. The Freedmen's Bureau helped African-Americans find family members from whom they had become separated during the war. The Bureau also founded schools to educate freedmen, both adults and children. The Bureau encouraged former major planters to rebuild their plantations and urged freed blacks to return to work for them, kept an eye on contracts between the newly free laborers and planters, and pushed whites and blacks to work together as employers and employees rather than as masters and slaves. Engraving by Alfred Rudolph Waud for Harper's Weekly, July 25, 1868

Picture No

12695888

Media ID

47666987

Size

4500px x 3153px (4.7MB)

Credit

LOC/Science Source/Mary Evans