United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of Freedmen's Complaints - FamilySearch Historical Records

Record Description
This collection will include records from 1865-1872

Index and images of registers of complaints and other records related to civil rights complaints. The complaints consisted of problems which freedmen brought to the Bureau's attention. Many registers give the names of freedmen and the nature of the complaint, but others give only a synopsis of the case without names. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (often called the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War 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. The records are from the field office records of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland/Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (often called the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War 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

Record Content
Complaint Books or Registers  may contain the following information:
 * No
 * When Received [Date]
 * Complainant or Inquirer
 * Complaint or Inquiry
 * Of Whom Complained
 * Action and When Taken
 * Result of Action
 * Final Action of Complaint Division

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Related Websites

 * NARA Freedmen's Bureau, 1865-1872
 * NARA Selected Images of Freedmen's Bureau Records
 * NARA Article Freedmen's Bureau Records
 * NARA Freedmen's Bureau Resources
 * Mapping the Freedmen's Bureau
 * Freedmen & Southern Society Project University of Maryland
 * The Freedmen's Bureau Online

Related Wiki Articles

 * African American Freedmen's Bureau Records
 * African American Genealogy
 * African American Freedman's Savings and Trust Company Records

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