From inventing dry-cleaning to sugar refining to the first steamboat propeller, African Americans have been active contributors to the economic, political, and social legacies of the United States.

Much of U.S. history, however, is contextualized by the system of slavery that was imposed on African Americans for 250 years—and how those born under that system and in its aftermath have crafted a culture deeply rooted in resilience and looking toward the future. The transition from slavery to freedom included many roadblocks as the country confronted the question of how resources could reach newly freed African Americans. 

The end of the Civil War in 1865 ushered in major changes in the U.S., including the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime. However, under U.S. law, people born into slavery were not considered citizens, which translated to a lack of crucial rights, including property ownership and voting. As a result, early efforts to transition from slavery to freedom prioritized the acquisition of citizenship. One such effort was Congress’s establishment of the United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands on March 3, 1865. 

Commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, the agency also sought to assist in the political and social reconstruction of post-war Southern states. To achieve this goal, the Bureau provided people with food, clothing, medical care, and legal representation; promoted education; helped legalize marriages; and assisted African American soldiers and sailors in securing back pay, enlistment bounties, and pensions. 

These goods and services, and the names of the people they were provided to—including many of the four million formerly enslaved people and hundreds of thousands of Southern whites—were documented through a handwritten record-keeping system. Preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration, the original Freedmen’s Bureau records include census lists, indentures of apprenticeship, labor contracts, letters, and marriage and hospital registers, as well as people’s names and the assistance they were issued. 

Today, NMAAHC’s Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal offers a comprehensive online search platform for family historians, genealogists, scholars, and students alike to research people and various topics in the Freedmen’s Bureau records. There one can view transcriptions of digitized records that illuminate an unparalleled time in our nation’s history. 

The records serve as written proof that these people lived, labored, married, and had children. But they do far more than paint a static portrait of a single moment in history. Together, these records provide us with a window into the lives of newly freed people—and, in doing so, with meaningful context for the social conditions of the post-war South. 

But there were many challenges. Recognizing the vital role land ownership played in creating generational wealth, the Bureau prioritized helping freed people settle on abandoned or confiscated land through the promotion of a labor contract system that was intended to replace slavery. However, much of the land African Americans were provided for farming was situated in either heavily wooded or swamp-covered areas and was therefore not suitable for growing crops. At the same time, African Americans in the South faced open discrimination from critical facets of society, including white doctors’ refusal to treat Black patients and Southern white teachers who pushed anti-emancipation lessons. 

Ultimately, due to a lack of funding from Congress and opposition from then-President Andrew Johnson, the Freedmen’s Bureau struggled to achieve many of the goals set forth by its representatives. As a result, the Bureau, which set up offices throughout the 15 Southern and border states as well as in D.C., only operated from 1865 to 1872. 

Despite major institutional and social pushback against post-war efforts for equality, African Americans continued to fight for their rights—and education was an area wherein formerly enslaved people saw early success. Literacy was a vital tool in freed people’s pursuit of citizenship and equality because it meant the ability to understand and draft labor contracts and protect oneself against predatory agreements and fraud.  

Even prior to the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, many African Americans purchased or rented land on which to locate schoolhouses, while others contributed the materials and sweat equity to build them. During its operation, the Freedmen’s Bureau helped found several historically Black colleges and universities throughout the South, including Howard, Fisk, and Hampton universities. 

Freedmen’s schools were not just for children. Since learning to read and write while enslaved had been illegal, most newly freed adults were also eager for an education. Many bureau schools operated day, evening, and even weekend classes for students of all ages. Although many of the teachers were white women affiliated with northern aid societies, a large number of free and formerly enslaved African Americans from both the North and the South also became teachers. Freedmen’s Bureau education records provide a glimpse into the number of students in each class, the various types of supplies and funding needed to build and operate schools, and the tireless efforts the teachers put into educating their students.     

These vitally important records serve as a detailed log of the American South’s history during its tumultuous transition away from slavery and into the era of segregation. In doing so, they foreshadow and provide crucial context for African Americans’ struggles for freedom in the century ahead. The accounts also illuminate the fierce determination of Black Americans under even the most contentious of circumstances—a powerful legacy reflected in the demonstrations of the Civil Rights Era and today’s efforts to achieve racial equity and social justice. 

In this way, the Freedmen’s Bureau records act as a written account of the many people who sought freedom and equality despite enormous resistance—and, who had, for far too long, gone unnamed. Through the records, these people, their lives, and their families are memorialized. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau records are featured in the Museum’s Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation 1877–1968 exhibition, providing a backdrop against which we see African Americans resisting white efforts to deny them “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The records also are reflected in an interactive exhibition in the Robert Frederick Smith Explore Your Family History Center on the Museum’s second floor, as well as in the Center’s rich array of public programs and research activities.  

NMAAHC’s Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal is a groundbreaking resource that offers unprecedented access to records that help tell the complete story of this nation. An ongoing initiative, the portal also reflects countless hours contributed by staff and volunteers—and Members like you—to the Smithsonian Transcription Center. With your generous support, NMAAHC is sharing more chapters in our collective narrative to illuminate our path forward. Together we are experiencing living history: exploring the past to contextualize and provide witness to the present—and contribute to a better future. 

Footer credits (provided by NMAAHC): 

Detail of letter to Freedmen’s Bureau Commissioner Howard regarding the Bureau’s investigation into the Memphis Massacre, May 22, 1966. Freedmen’s Bureau digital collection.  

Carte-de-visite of a Freedmen’s school with students and teachers in New Bern, North Carolina, ca. 1868. Photograph by John D. Heywood. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau (detail), illustration by A.R. Waud. Published in Harper’s Weekly, July 25, 1868. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Stanley Turkel’s Collection of Reconstruction Era Materials. 

Cabinet card of Sojourner Truth, 1864. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Letter to Assistant Quartermaster J.M. Brown from District of Columbia Assistant Commissioner John Easton Jr. authorizing a payment to Sojourner Truth for her work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, July 4, 1865. Freedmen’s Bureau digital collection.