Freedmen’s Bureau Basics
The year Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau.
What is 1865?
Enslavers often changed these, making it difficult for families to identify one another.
What are names?
“Jumping the broom” symbolized this among enslaved African Americans.
What is marriage?
This deadly disease threatened newly freed families and required Bureau medical support.
What is smallpox?
Modern family reunions in Black communities are traceable back to this historical practice.
What is the post-emancipation search for relatives?
This U.S. Army general led the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Who is General Oliver O. Howard?
After emancipation, many African Americans searched for relatives using this method common in Black newspapers.
What are “Information Wanted” advertisements?
This circular instructed Bureau agents to officially record marriages.
What is Circular No. 11?
Even when relatives located spouses, this complication sometimes arose.
What is remarriage (their spouse had remarried)?
Family reunions often highlight these two cultural elements passed down through generations.
What are music and culinary traditions?
Name two services the Freedmen’s Bureau provided to newly freed
What are education, food, clothing, medical care, legal help, labor contract negotiation, or transportation?
This term describes the informal kinship networks that formed when enslaved people adopted or created new family ties.
What are new kinship bonds?
Legal marriage was important partly because it helped legitimize these dependents.
What are children?
Few Black agents worked for the Bureau; in total, fewer than this many agents served the entire South.
What is 900?
Reunions honor this quality that families demonstrated during and after slavery.
What is resilience?
The Bureau attempted to set aside 40-acre plots under this circular before it was reversed.
What is Circular 13?
Searches for family often passed through places like contraband camps, churches, and these former properties.
What are plantation homes?
Many freed people adopted new surnames, one common choice was this name representing newly gained freedom.
What is Freeman or Freedman?
Some formerly enslaved people found their records missing or destroyed, making it harder to prove identity for this legal purpose.
What is marriage documentation, pensions, or legal status
Family reunions create opportunities to preserve and share this about a family’s past.
What is history or heritage?
Despite its mission, the Bureau struggled because Congress provided this major limitation.
What is chronic underfunding (and fewer than 900 agents)?
This was one reason many searches were unsuccessful.
What is the long passage of time and distance since separation?
Legalized marriages also impacted access to these government benefits for families.
What are Union veterans’ pensions?
Name two factors that made family reunification extremely difficult.
What are long distances, name changes, time, lack of records, disease, relocated plantations, or lack of communication networks?
The growth of reunions as tradition reflects this overarching goal after slavery.
What is reconnecting kinship ties across distance?