What was the Freedmens Bureau, and how effective was it? How successful was it in assisting ex-slaves to live in freedom?

The
Freedmen's Bureau, technically known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,
was established in the final days of the Civil War. Its purpose was to provide relief and
economic opportunity to poor whites and especially freed slaves in the South after the war. The
Bureau took on a host of challenges, each urgent and each very difficult, if not insurmountable.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Bureau provided relief in the form of food, shelter,
and medical care to freed slaves.

Over time, the mandate of the Bureau
expanded to include establishing schools, assisting freedmen in finding jobs and negotiating
labor contracts, and managing lands that had been confiscated. It was in the area of education
that the Bureau made perhaps its most lasting contribution. Hundreds of schools, often staffed
with Bureau workers, were constructed across the South.

Several colleges and
universities were established with the cooperation of the Freedmen's Bureau, which
also...

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