Talk:Freedmen's Bureau

Comment
New International Encyclopedia does not mention that the lands of former slaveowners would be "broken up" and given to former slaves. New International Encyclopedia states that the most important part of the law was "the provision authorizing the President to appropriate for the use of freedmen the confiscated and abandoned lands within the Southern States, not more than 40 acres for a period not longer than three years".... That was the allowable practice. The government did not take lands from white people and give it away to Negroes. 71.240.27.3 01:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Encylopedias

 * Other encylopedias are not reliable sources. In fact the US seized the Sea Islands in 1862 and set up farms for Freedmen there. The 2nd Confiscation act allowed all the lands of Confederate slaveowners to be taken away. -- That did not happen but it was a live issue.  Rjensen 01:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Baloneyism
According to the Congressional Record, Chap. XC. - An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees became a law on March 3, 1865. It was designed ..."to continue during the present war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter,...." Its purpose was ..."the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or from any district of country within the territory embraced in the operations of the army, ...." "The said bureau shall be under the management and control of a commissioner to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose compensation shall be three thousand dollars per annum, and such number of clerks as may be assigned to him by the Secretary of War, not exceeding one chief chief clerk, two of the fourth class, two of the third class, and five of the first class."

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, "That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct."

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, "That the President may, ... appoint an assistant commissioner for each of the states declared to be in insurrection, ....

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, ..."tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman,  there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land, ... for the term of three years at an annual rent not exceeding six per centum ....  At the end of said term, or at any time during said  term, the occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and receive such title thereto as the United States can convey, upon paying therefor the value of the land, as ascertained and fixed for the purpose of determining the annual rent aforesaid.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, "That all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed."

Approved, March 3, 1865.


 * The word "education" is not mentioned.
 * The word "blacks" is not mentioned.
 * The word "schools" is not mentioned.
 * The word "churches" is not mentioned.

Contrarily, the Wikipedia article often mentions "education" and "blacks" and "schools" and "churches." The Wikipedia article also claims that "anti-white violence" existed. (I had never heard of "anti-white violence" until I read the Wikipedia version of history). The Wikipedia version makes no mention of a Commisioner. (Old General Howard was the tyrannical ogre who wielded a heavy hand and tormented the "poor white farmers.") The article is extremely distorted and non-factual.

The URL is http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hlawquery.html

Search the thirty-eighth Congress, second session. The entire text is available for reading. This act was the first of two acts. The thirty-ninth Congress passed a tougher version of the same law.

The search term is "Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands"

Help to ride the Wikipedia of the baloneyism. 71.240.16.194 18:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Go to Image 507, 508, and 509.  71.240.16.194 18:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Statutes at Large is the precise location.  71.240.16.194 18:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

"H. R. 613"
Employ this search term as you search the thirty-ninth Congress. H. R. 613 is the bill. Several examples of H. R. 613 are in the congressional record. You may examine the final version of the law until your hat floats.

Rid Wikipedia of humbug. 71.253.41.33 13:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

What is a school?
The article repeatedly mentions "schools."

A "school" is like a "house" in that there are small ones, and there are large ones. A "doghouse" is a "house" just as the Presidential mansion (the White House) is a "house." The "schools" that the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen. and Abandoned Lands constructed were shanties that passed as "schools."

I have been inside of one of those shanties that passed as a "school." I know what I saw.

The real "schools" were the land-grant colleges that were constructed after 1865. More than 50 of them were built. They were not built to educate colored people, they were built to educate white people. Many of them have become universities. They have large campuses. They're comparable to the White House, while the shanties are comparable to doghouses.

There is no reason to mention "schools" without describing their sizes and capabilities. A "house" may refer to a dollhouse or a "house" of cards. Please do not announce that they "built schools" unless you describe those "schools" which I call shanties. 71.240.32.87 06:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The quality of a school is in its teaching. The buildings were of comparable quality to those all over rural America as late as 1910. National churches built better quality buildings and colleges. In 1890 the Land Grant college system was extended to black colleges. Rjensen 06:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794&#45;1877) donated $1,000,000 to begin the construction of Vanderbilt University. Eventually, the Peabody Education Fund contributed money to build Vanderbilt University.  Other sources of money were located, too.  They didn't build a shanty, they built a huge "school" with a large library.  Why?


 * They knew that a well&#45;equipped institution is capable of providing a better education. Colored schoolchildren in the State of Virginia in the 1960s were provided with a textbook titled: Little Black Sambo meets Black Mambo.  The students could not learn much.


 * People are not interested in hearing truth. U. S. President Carter was raised amidst Negroes in the 1930s.  He explained that Negroes had little, but people have chosen to believe their own delusions and the delusions of other people such as U. S. President "Ron" Reagan, whose head was filled with delusions.  71.253.55.145 19:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Modern Snipers
Some certain people have taken potshots at a dedicated servant of the U. S. Government by claiming that General Howard used a "loose interpretation" of the law. He did no such thing, he obeyed his orders. I am placing an NPOV into the article because it features untrue statements. 71.240.42.72 23:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Hundreds of shanties
I doubt that 4,300 shanties were built for negroes. At a cost of $500 each, that would amount to $2,150,000. Where would anyone find 4,300 teachers to teach the colored people? Slaves were unprepared to be teachers. The white men may have constructed several hundred shanties, but not 4,300 of them. POV. 71.240.14.65 21:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

STATEMENTS OF A DUBIOUS NATURE....
Statements of a dubious nature exist throughout the article from top to bottom. The KKK (Ku Klux Klan) slew many Negroes, readily. NPOV 71.240.84.250 18:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * it helps to point out statements of a dubious nature. Rjensen 02:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Bigotry on the Talk Page
I am not sure what is driving the obviously biggoted commentators above, but this is the ONLY Talk Page I have seen that refers to blacks as "Colored People" and "Negroes." As for the reference to "schools", even if a dwelling is a shanty that would still constitute a viable place for a "school." Most of the comments above - with the exception of Rjensen - are virtually incoherent. Stevenmitchell 06:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * YO, you must be from Mars THE PLANET because you cannot be dumb enough to have never known that Negro is one of the commonest words in the history of the United States of America. Benjamin Franklin owned a "negro wench" and advertised her for sale.  George Washington owned over 100 Negroes.  Andrew Jackson owned Negroes.  Slave peddlers advertised in newspapers: FOR SALE NEGROES.  Do yall sell vanilla ice cream cones on mars, YO?HeyYallYo 17:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Obvious error but no obvious correction
The 5th sentence in the first paragraph under "Overview" ends with this erroneous phrase, but I don't know the facts needed to correct it: "of ised Blacks that the plantation lands of their former and employers." Rtrac3y (talk) 22:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Dates
The dates that this gives for the life of the Bureau are internally inconsistent. This is most unhelpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.154.254.17 (talk) 03:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

External Link
Hello, there is an article here, http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1447, that might be useful.

Thanks,

Justin --Duboiju (talk) 16:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I've added an external link to the Freedmen Bureau's activities in Georgia that may be helpful. COI Disclosure: I work for the New Georgia Encyclopedia, a project of Georgia Humanities in partnership with the University of Georgia Press and Galileo. Thanks, Sldevine (talk) 15:03, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Change name to "Freedmen's Bureau"
Wiki rules say that we should title the article by the usual name--a quick glance at the bibliography or at any textbook demonstrates that the usual name is "Freedmen's Bureau" so I will change it unless there are objections. Rjensen (talk) 17:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Freedmen's Bureau Bill
I have proposed merging Freedmen's Bureau Bill into this article. That article is a stub and it doesn't seem as though the legislation itself has significance beyond its result, which is the bureau that is the subject of this article. Please discuss. —Tim Pierce (talk) 20:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * that article mixes up two different bills--one signed by Lincoln in 1865 and one vetoed by Johnson 1866, and should be corrected and merged here. Rjensen (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not confident that I have the background to sort out which bill is which; does someone else here feel up to the task of correcting Freedmen's Bureau Bill? —Tim Pierce (talk) 15:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

(undent)Since this merge discussion seems to have become somewhat stale, I've removed the merge tag. Also, I moved the article in question to Freedmen's Bureau bills. It think there's enough material there now for a separate article. I also hope to expand it further.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

New general info/intorduction
I changed the introduction section. It needed sources and new sources which I have done. I also thought that some of the information was a little unclear or slightly inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Say022 (talk • contribs) 04:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I added some more reference info to this section that referred to the name of the bureau, source was from the Library of Congress document and the date range of the bureau from PBS web site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Say022 (talk • contribs) 13:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

New Section
I added a new section to the article. It is a state by state summary of a freedmen's bureeau report made on May 1866. The report does not report on states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee and Arkansas, information of the state of the bureau should be included from them as well. There are some formation issue such as the heading of the section I had some trouble with. I am new to Wikipedia and still unfimiliar with some of the commands. The sources for the section were from one document so I cited it in a small intro to the section. I'm not sure if this is the best way to the overall information of the section. I did not want to over load the reference section. Please feel free to change the format or reference if you feel it is not in standing with wikipedia standards.say022
 * Nice job! I cleaned it up a bit and dropped repetitive info that anyine can get with a clickthrough. (always sign your talk page posts with four tildes like this: ~ Rjensen (talk) 11:11, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Article merge
There were merge discussions concerning Freedmen's Bureau bills in 2006 and 2009 there, and 2010 and 2011 here. Although there was no actual objections there never was a merge and the template removed with comments that, "...there's enough material there now for a separate article.", and hopeful plans for expansion. I left comments on the talk page concerning a merge and reasoning. The main thing is that the lead of this article discusses both "bills", that are not included in the main body, and that would be a good place for a history section of the Bureau. A none controversial merge and inclusion in a history section would be a simple solution. I would think this would improve the article and remove a long standing redundant article. Otr500 (talk) 14:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Robert Penn Warren's novel, Band of Angels, contains a chapter on the Freedmen's Bureau, published in 1955 by Random House, Chapter 9.

Vicweip (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

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