The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established in March 1865, before the end of the Civil War, as part of the War Department. It had a huge mission, a small budget, and a host of people putting roadblocks in its way.

The main issues of contention boiled down (surprise!) to money and power. The Bureau provided food, fuelwood, and other necessities to destitute people, Black and White, but with an oft-stated concern that they would become dependent on hand-outs and not seek work. The first official notice issued by General O.O. Howard, the Bureau’s director, stated: “The negro should understand that he is really free but on no account, if able to work, should harbor the thought that the Government will support him in idleness.” And Howard was actually considered a supporter of freedpeople.

Washington’s Black population doubled between 1860 and 1867, and jobs were scarce. The solution proposed by Bureau officials: Move. Perhaps had the original plan gone through of giving formerly enslaved people title to small tracts of land to farm, more would have been willing to do so. The “abandoned lands” mentioned in the Bureau’s official title lay fallow, but Whites were not about to let Blacks own them. Becoming a contract laborer or sharecropper had far less appeal, although, of course, many thousands eventually had no choice.

Julia Wilbur and other women worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau, although their expenses were paid not by the government but by relief organizations. They were assigned districts—Wilbur’s was the area around current-day George Washington University and Georgetown. In visiting homes to distribute tickets for food etc., the agents were expected to pass judgment and report on cleanliness and general conditions. Yes, that was probably as humiliating to people then as it sounds today. Even then, the male Bureau officials accused the women of being too soft.

On April 2, 1866, Wilbur wrote in her diary—

Bureau has issued Circular No. 4. Rations & wood will not be issued to people here after the 10th of April. The orphans are to be sent to a farm near Eastern Branch. The hospital will receive the sick. The old & aged disabled &c. will be sent to Alexa & Freedmen’s Village. The ablebodied are expected to leave W. & go wherever they can get work. They are urged to go to Mississippi & Arkansas with Northern men who promise to do well by them. Will take families. But the colored people can’t see it. They cannot understand why it will be better for them in Miss. than it is in Va. These people were never in Arkansas. It is a thousand miles away. They think if they cannot be protected near W. they certainly will not be so far off. I cannot favor this plan. I wish they would go North or West & scatter about the country. They cannot all find work here & Northern farmers want laborers.—But prejudice hinders every project for their benefit.

She and others (including Sojourner Truth) arranged for some former slaves to take up new jobs in Hartford, Rochester, and many other Northern cities and towns. They sometimes accompanied them to their new locations, which may have been what was going on in the illustration above. But going north and west did not guarantee a better life, as letters to the Freedmen’s Bureau by exploited workers made clear.

The Freedmen’s Bureau also set up schools and hospitals and staved off some the worst deprivations. Yet its funding did not last as political and public support dissipated.

Records from the Freedmen’s Bureau are at the National Archives—mostly on microfilm. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is embarking on an effort to transcribe these records.