On May 4, 1865, some 439,000 Alabama former slaves became the responsibility of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. The Bureau was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865 and was responsible for integrating the freedmen into the long-established Southern society. The Bureau’s responsibilities included the administering of the freedmen’s relief programs, hospitals and medical aid, education and justice.
General Oliver O. Howard was appointed commissioner, the top man, and he then appointed assistant commissioners to serve in the Southern states. Brigadier General Wagner Swayne was appointed as commissioner for Alabama and worked out of the headquarters in Montgomery. Twenty-three subordinate field offices were set up in cities around the state. The Bureau operated from 1865–1871. The Freedmen’s Bureau and the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company were created around the same time and sometimes lead researchers to believe that they operated under the same director. However, they were separate institutions; the bank was not owned or operated by the federal government or the Freedmen’s Bureau. The bank existed from 1865–1874 when it went bankrupt. Dividends payment records indicates that from 1875 depositors claims were satisfied up to 1918. In its peak period there were thirty-seven branches of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company throughout the South. Alabama had branches in Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile. The major depositors in the bank were soldiers from the U.S. Colored Troops along with a few social clubs, churches, and other organizations. The Bank’s records are at the National Archives in Record Group 101, Records of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The types of records include the signature registers, index to deposit ledgers, letters, loan and real estate records, miscellaneous records, passbooks, and dividend payment records. A complete description and the listing of the records that survive for the three branches in Alabama can be located in the African American Genealogical Sourcebook.[15]
Nevertheless, Alabama’s freedmen’s greatest benefits were from the Freedmen’s Bureau’s success in relief and educational work. Though the problems, procedures and policies of the Bureau in Alabama were similar to other Southern states, they played an important role in helping the newly freed slaves to adjust in a new way in their old surroundings. The records reside at the National Archives in Record Group 105, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the commissioners and superintendent are Headquarters records. Records of the assistant commissioner, superintendent of education, field offices, and marriage were created in the state offices. Records of the Assistant Commissioner (M809), Education (M810), and Field Offices (M1900) exist for Alabama. Researching the Headquarters records may yield further information pertaining to Alabama freedmen.
Congressional passage of the Freedmen’s Bureau Preservation Act of 2000 authorized three million dollars to preserve on microfilm the more than one thousand linear feet of field office records of the Freedmen’s Bureau at the National Archives thereby making them more accessible to the public. A descriptive pamphlet for the Alabama field office records was compiled by Reginald Washington, an African American specialist at the National Archives, to further public accessibility. Shamele Jordan of the African American Genealogy Group in Philadelphia has created fact charts for each Southern state that had Freedmen’s Bureau offices. Jordan has also created concise researcher tips on how to search for your ancestors in the Freedmen’s Bureau records (see Appendix E). She can be contacted at sjordon3@gmail.com.
Below are suggested readings for further understanding of the operations of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama and for each Southern states, and Washington, D.C. Additionally I have included readings for the Freedman Bank’s operations in Alabama and other Southern states.
Resources
Bentley, George R. A History of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Thesis for the University of Wisconsin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1955.
Berlin, Ira, et al. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867. Vol. 1–3. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Bethel, Elizabeth. “The Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama.” Journal of Southern History. 14 (1948): 49–92.
Blassingame, John W. “Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems.” Journal of Southern History. 41 (1975): 473–492.
Chartock, Lewis C. A History and Analysis of Labor Contracts Administered by the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in Edgefield, Abberville and Anderson counties in South Carolina, 1865–1868. Ph.D. dissertation. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr College, 1974.
David, Robert Scott, Jr. “Documentation for Afro-American Families: Records of Freedman’s Savings and Trust Co.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly. 76:2 (June,1988): 129–146.
Davis, Robert Scott, Jr. “Freedmen’s Bureau and Other Reconstructions Sources for Research in African-American Families, 1865–1874.” Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. 9.4 (1988): 171–176.
Eisenberg, Marcia J. “Birth Registrations of Children of Slaves.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly. 75.4 (December, 1987): 271–277.
“Freedman’s Savings.” Freedom’s Record. 4.2 (February, 1868): 22–23.
“Freedman’s Saving Bank.” Old and New. 2.2 (August, 1870): 245–47.
Fuke, Richard Paul. “Planters, Apprenticeship, and Forced Labor: The Black Family Under Pressure, Post-Emancipation, Maryland.” Agricultural History. 62.4 (1988): 57–74.
Gilbert, Abby L. “The Controller of the Currency and the Freedman’s Saving Bank.” Journal of Negro History. 57.2 (April, 1972): 125–143.
Howard, General O. “The Freedman’s Savings Bank.” American Missionary. 18 (November, 1869): 243–245.
Oubre, Claude F. Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Land Ownership. Louisiana State University Press, 1978.
Peirce, Paul Skeels. The Freedmen’s Bureau: A Chapter in the History of Reconstruction. Reprint Services Corps, January 1904.
Rathbun, Charles. Names from Huntsville, Alabama, 1865–1869, as Recorded in Registers of Signatures of Depositors in the Huntsville Bank Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, Accounts 1–385. Littleton, CO: Rathbun, 1986.
Helpful Internet Sources
Freedmen’s Bureau Online: www.freedmensbureau.com/alabama/index.htm.
National Black Catholic Congress: www.nbccongress.org.
[15] Byers, Paula K., ed. African American Genealogical Sourcebook. Gale Research Inc., 1995. pp. 57–66.