District of Columbia, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1863-1872

What is in This Collection?

This collection consists of scanned images of records from National Archives microfilm publication M1902,Records of the Field Offices for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands which is part of Record Group 105 Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.

The images are generally arranged in the order the records were microfilmed with the records of the Assistant Commissioner who oversaw Bureau operations in the state and state level staff officers; Commissary of Subsistence, Inspector General and Disbursing Officer, Quartermaster and Disbursing Officer, and Surgeon first then the local field office records are arranged alphabetically by location and by NARA roll number.

Records with Freedmen and Refugee Names

• Freedmen's Village: Roll 21, Register of people arriving at Freedmen's Village, Jan 1, 1867-June 27, 1868. NAID 5686335
• Washington and Georgetown: Roll 19, Register of freedmen departing Mason's Island, VA, May 18, 1864-Jul 18, 1865
• Superintendent of Marriages: Roll 12, Register of Marriages,Nov 1866-Jul 1867
• Washington and Georgetown: Roll 18, Employment registers, Wisewell and East Capital Street Barracks, 1866-1868

Freedmen's Village

• National Archives Historical Sketch of the Freedmen's Village, 1863-1865
• National Archives Historical Sketch of the Freedmen's Village, 1872-1900
• Freedman's Village near Arlington Heights, Va. July 10th, 1865. Genl. ground Plan No. 9. NAID 305826 Map
• Washington, DC - Deaths and Burials includes freedmen in the Washington, DC area
• Lindsey Bestebreurtje. Beyond the Plantation: Freedmen, Social Experimentation, and African American Community in Freedmen's Village, 1863-1900. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 126 #3 (2018): 334-365.
• Ric Murphy and Timothy Stephens. Section 27 and Freedman's Village in Arlington National Cemetery : the African American history of America's most hallowed ground. Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, ©2020 FS Library 975.5295/A1 V3m

Freedmen's Hospital

• Freedmen's Hospital 1870 Census Subdivision East of 1st Street pages 12-18 Patients and Staff
• Records of the Freedmen's Hospital, 1872-1910. National Archives C148, FamilySearch Catalog
• Patients and Staff at the Freedmen's Hospital, Washington, D.C. in the Federal Censuses, 1870-1940. NARA

General Information about Freedmen's Bureau Records

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established in the War Department in March of 1865. It was commonly called the Freedman’s Bureau and was responsible for the management and supervision of matters relating to refuges, freedmen, and abandoned lands. The Bureau assisted disenfranchised Americans, primarily African Americans, with temporal, legal and financial matters, with the intent of helping people to become self-sufficient. Matters handled included the distributing of food and clothing; operating temporary medical facilities; acquiring back pay, bounty payments, and pensions; facilitating the creation of schools, including the founding of Howard University; reuniting family members; handling marriages; and providing banking services. Banking services were provided by the establishment of the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company, or Freedman’s Bank.

The Bureau functioned as an agency of the War Department from approximately June 1865 until December 1868. In 1872, the functions of the Bureau were transferred to the Freedmen’s Branch of the Adjutant General’s Office. The Bureau assisted over one million African Americans, including many of the nearly four million emancipated slaves, which was over 25% of the population of former slaves in America.The records identify those who sought help from the Bureau at the end of the Civil War. Most supplicants were freed slaves, some of which were military veterans. In addition, a few veterans who were not African Americans also sought help from the Bureau. Freedmen’s Bureau records are usually reliable, because the records were supplied through first-person correspondence or the recording of a marriage.

Related Articles

• Dr. Shelly Viola Murphy, Let Freedom Ring Family Tree Magazine 23 # 3 (May-June 2022): 50-56. FS Library 973 D25ft V23. Issue 3
• Sharon Batiste Gillins. A Window into the lives of black and white ancestors: Freedmen's Bureau field office records. NGS Magazine 39 #1 (January-March 2013): 34-38.
• Sharon Batiste Gillins. Navigating Freedmen's Bureau Records for Research Success NGS Magazine 47 #2 (April-June 2021): 27- 35.

National Museum of African American History & Culture

The museum is working with the Smithsonian Transcription Center and volunteers to transcribe the records of the Bureau.

• Freedmen's Bureau Transcription Project.
• About The Freedmen's Bureau Database Records
• FREEDMEN'S BUREAU ABBREVIATIONS, STAFF ROSTERS, AND STYLE SHEETS
• Freedmen's Bureau - Browse Projects

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

To Browse This Collection

You can browse through images in this collection using the waypoints on the Collection Browse Page for District of Columbia, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1863-1872.

Collection Content

Sample Images

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  1868 Example 1

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  1868 Example 2

• NARA select Images from Freedmen's Bureau Records

Record Types

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (often called the Freedmen’s Bureau) created many different record types necessary to supervise relief efforts including education, health care, food and clothing, refugee camps, legalization of marriages, employment, labor contracts, and securing back pay, bounty payments and pensions. These records include letters and endorsements sent and received, account books, applications for rations, applications for relief, court records, labor contracts, registers of bounty claimants, registers of complaints, registers of contracts, registers of disbursements, registers of freedmen issued rations, registers of patients, reports, rosters of officers and employees, special and general orders and circulars received, special orders and circulars issued, records relating to claims, court trials, property restoration, and homesteads.

• The following link will provide a description of the record types found in this and other Freedmen’s Bureau collections.Freedmen's Bureau Record Types

Officer's Manual

The War Department published an Officer's Manual to assist bureau personnel in the records that were required to be keep in bureau offices.

• United States, National Archives, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual

The following Wiki articles are transcriptions of portions of the manual

• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - I, Book Keeping and Official Correspondence
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - IV, Medical Department
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - V, Subsistence
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - VI, Miscellaneous Provisions - Includes Reports from Assistant Commissioners

Inventory

Collection descriptions for the browse images may be located in either the published National Archives preliminary inventory with the "Entry No." or the National Archives Catalog Online Public Access Catalog "OPA." with the National Archives Identifier "NAID" number. To see the inventory, click on the following link. District of Columbia, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, Inventory