United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Land and Property Records, 1865-1872

What is in This Collection?

Abandoned and confiscated property was managed by Special Agents of the Treasury Department during the Civil War. After the war the Freedmen's Bureau continued managing the property for the years 1865 to 1872. The Bureau was tasked to "supervise and manage all abandoned lands including leasing or supervising the cultivation of abandoned and confiscated property." It also received and acted upon applications for the restoration of property. This collection consists of property-related records including registers, applications, and leases. To locate additional information on the indexed collections in this publication see both the Inventory and Digital Folder Number List sections in this article under the heading Collection Content.

Related Publication

• Steven Hahn, Steven F. Miller, Susan E. O'Donovan,John C. Rodrigue, and Leslie S. Rowland. Freedom A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867. Series 3: Volume 1. Land and Labor, 1865. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008. FS Library 973 B4fr ser. 3 v.1

Related Collections Treasury Department

• United States, National Archives Records of Civil War Special Agents of the Treasury Department, and Related Collections RG 366
• United States, National Archives, Department of the Treasury. Division of Captured Property, Claims and Lands RG 56
• Maps of Captured and Abandoned Properties NAID 960291
• Maps of Captured and Abandoned Properties, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas. NAID 960291
• Map of Louisiana Representing the Several Land Districts, from the Surveyor General's Report 1860
• Manuscript Map Showing the Position of Government Farms, 1st District Negro Affairs, Department of Virginia and North Carolina
• Plot of Vicksburg and Natchez Districts, For Leasing Abandoned Plantations

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.

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.

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

Sample Images

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  1866 Affidavit

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  1866 Land Grant

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  1866 Lease

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  1865 Petition for Restoration of Property (page 1)

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  1865 Petition for Restoration of Property (page 2)

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  1865 Petition for Restoration of Property (page 3)

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  1865 Petition for Restoration of Property (page 4)

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  1865 Property Restoration

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  1865 Register of Land Titles

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  Register of Leased Plantations

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  1865 Monthly Report to the Commission

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  1865 Consolidated Tri-monthly Report to the Commission

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

The search results in this collection will identify the National Archives microfilm publication that the indexed image is from along with the film, digital and image numbers. The United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Land and Property Records 1865-1872 Digital Folder Number List will help you determine the specific locality and provide the film notes which should identify the record type. Additional images of bureau records for the locality identified in the table will be found by searching in the browse collection.

Digital Folder Number List

This collection was published as a DGS browse collection. The list does not contain any description of the DGS folder's content. A table listing each DGS number and its contents can be found at the Digital Folder Number List.