Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Department

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post    On Naming Things series

Through the years I've known a little bit of something about the Freedman's Bureau, but I think I've never known its full name:

This was an act of federal relief proposed by Abraham Lincoln in 1865¹ empowered to help the newly-freed slave transition to their new life.   The "Abandoned Lands" part was very unsettling, in a way equating refugees and newly-freed slaves with real estate.  But it was the language and practice of the time, and economy of presentation, and logic, I guess, that lead to this title.  The bureau here was the Military, which was run by General O.O. Howard.  The Bureau functioned from 1865 until it ran out of steam (along with other Reconstruction efforts and measures) in 1872.

In a way it reminded me somewhat of the fight for the capitalization of the "N" in the word "Negro" (see here)--something that seems beyond the scope of thinking about nowadays, but it was a battlefield for decades after the Civil War, with that "N" not being decided positively until the 1920's in common usage.  "Abandoned Lands" is not the same thinking-point as "N", though it does make one think about what was in the common thinking that these three titles could be brought together as a single bureau, regardless of the hyper- and sub-text of the meaning associations via proximity

Sec. 1. "...a bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands, to which shall be committed, as hereinafter provided, the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the [92] control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or from any district or county within the territory embraced in the operations of the army..."

Sec. 2 "And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children..."

 

[Source: with thanks to Rebecca Onion at Slate Magazine's The Vault, who posted the original document earlier today and where the name of teh bureau struck me so heavily.]

There was a proposed second bill to this one, presented and defeated in early December 1865, just two weeks or so before the 13th Amendment was adopted² ("Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.")

NOTES

1.  The bill was enacted March 3, 1865 as "An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees."

2.  The 13th Amendment was passed by the Senate April 8 1864 and then on June 31 in the House, having failed earlier in June in a vote to get the necessary 2/3 majority vote for passage.