The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau or (mistakenly) the Freedman's Bureau, was established March 3, 1865 by Congress and administered by the United States Department of War, and headed by Union general Oliver O. Howard, to aid distressed refugees of the United States Civil War, including former slaves and poor white farmers. The Bureau also controlled confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, some border states, District of Columbia and Indian Territory.

Its purpose was to help the newly-freed former slaves acquire some of the things that they had previously been denied, such as at least a rudimentary education and an opportunity to learn jobs skills outside manual labor. Not wanting to face this new potential competition, it was probably the least popular of all Reconstruction measures among white Southerners, and was one of the first to be abolished.

The Bureau was fully operational only from June 1865 through December 1868 and was disbanded in 1872.

External links

• Elaine C. Everly, "Freedmen's Bureau Records: An Overview," Prologue, Summer 1997 (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/summer_1997_freedmens_bureau_records.html)
• About.com: The Freedmen's Bureau (http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/reconstruction/a/freedmensbureau.htm)