Guide to Records
Federal Records
1
Freedmen’s Bureau Records, Record Group 105, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (BRFAL), Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia
The Freedmen’s Bureau, as the bureau was commonly known, was established in the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 507), and extended twice by acts of July 16, 1866 (14 Stat. 173), and July 6, 1868 (15 Stat. 83). Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, appointed commissioner by the President in May 1865, served in that position until June 30, 1872, when activities of the bureau were terminated in accordance with an act of June 10, 1872 (17 Stat. 366)…
Although the bureau was a part of the War Department, its work was primarily social and economic in nature. Bureau officials cooperated with benevolent societies in issuing supplies to the destitute and in maintaining freedmen’s schools; supervised labor contracts between black employees and white employers; helped black soldiers and sailors collect bounty claims, pension, and backpay; and attended to the disposition of confiscated or abandoned lands and property.
The act of March 3, 1865, also authorized the appointment of assistant commissioners to aid the commissioner in supervising the work of the bureau in the southern states.
The records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia provide salient insights into failed Federal land policy and the initiatives undertaken by African Americans to negotiate favorable terms to lease rice plantations. Register of Land Titles, Registers of Complaints, Letters Received, Records relating to Labor Contracts, and Register of Labor Contracts provide a composite picture of how former slaves began their adjustment to freedom and what some of their conceptions were about the society in which they lived. The records of local agents constitute a major source of information about race relations and the concerns of former slaves in the Georgia Lowcountry during the early post-war years.
2
Records of the New Orleans Field Offices, Bureau of Refugees, , Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (BRFAL), Records of the Freedmen’s Hospital
The Freedmen’s Hospital records also include six registers of patients treated at Freedmen’s Hospital and its predecessor, the Corps d’Afrique Hospital…
The data provided in these registers varies but sometimes includes the patient’s name, hospital number; age; sex; disease; admission date; discharge, transfer, or desertion date; ward assignment; and place of residence.
3
Freedmen’s Bank Records, Record Group 101, Records of the Comptroller of Currency
This record group contains the records of the Freedmen’s Bank, which operated 37 branches in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Over its 9-year history, the bank had more than 70,000 depositors totaling more than $57 million…
The Savannah branch of the Freedmen’s Bank operated until 1871. Bank branches collected an enormous amount of personal information about each depositor and his/her family. The Registers of Signature of Depositors include place of residence, occupation, spouse, siblings, and remarks which often contain invaluable personal information.
3
Southern Claims Commission Records, Record Group 217, Records of the Accounting Officers of the Department of the Treasury
The Southern Claims Commission was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1871 to review and make recommendations regarding the claims of southern loyalists whose property had been used by the US Army and the US Navy during the Civil War…
The Commission’s records contain an extraordinary amount of information useful to the study of southern social history. The records are arranged by state, county, and claimants name. The records document information about plantation conditions, wills and probate matters, slave and free Black enterprise, and places of residence. The Barred and Disallowed Case Files are of particular interest. These records reveal patterns of negotiation with planters and resistance to
enslavement that began during slavery.
US Census Records, Record Group 29
1790-1840 censuses list only free Black heads of households; lists free nonwhites as “all other persons.” No distinction is made between free Blacks and Native Americans. Slaves are listed by total number of age and sex categories.
1850-1860 census provides the name, age, and place of birth of each free Black person in a household.
1870 census is the first census listing all African Americans by names; it is the first official recording of a surname for most former slaves.
1880 census is the first census showing relationship to head of household.
1890 census has special schedules providing names, addresses, and other military information relating to Union veterans, widows and/or orphans including African Americans. The 1890 population census was destroyed by fire.
All of the decennial census schedules are arranged geographically.
State Records
4
Superior Court Records, Georgia
Superior Court Records, specifically deed records, provide an analysis of African American property ownership in Chatham, McIntosh, Glynn, and Liberty Counties during the late nineteenth century.
5
Tax Digests, Georgia
County tax digest records provide the names of landowners, the value of their property, the location of the property, the number of acres, whether a poll tax was paid, and the occupation of the property owner.
Philanthropic Organizations
6
American Missionary Association Records
The American Missionary Association (AMA) was an abolitionist group founded on Protestant beliefs. It was focused on the abolition of slavery, education for African Americans, gaining racial equality, and promoting Christian values. They were most prominent in the United States from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.
Before and during the Civil War, the American Missionary Association founded anti-slavery churches and black schools. In Illinois alone, they were able to help start over 115 churches founded on the belief that slavery is wrong. The AMA also recruited teachers to help educate black people. During the Civil War, many AMA teachers instructed freed slaves–both children and adults–in so-called contraband camps in Union-controlled Confederate territory.
After the Civil War, the American Missionary Association dramatically increased the number of schools and colleges it founded for freed slaves. African Americans and white sympathizers believed that education should be a top priority for freed slaves and was the best way to help them fully gain their civil rights. With this idea at the core of the AMA’s beliefs, they founded more than five hundred schools and colleges in the South and spent more money doing so than the U.S. government-sponsored Freedmen’s Bureau. Those colleges included Fisk University, Hampton Institute, Tougaloo College, Atlanta University, Dillard University, Talladega College, and Howard University. The American Missionary Association also created the Freedmen’s Aid Society to recruit Northern teachers to teach in the South and help find those teachers housing.