On March 3, 1865, congress created the bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands, better known as the Freedman's Bureau. Its purpose was to help the 4 million former slaves who lived in the south and in the border states make the transition to freedom.
The bureau was supposed to be temporary and only last one year after the end of the war, but congress wanted to extend the law creating the bureau, but President Johnson vetoed the bill.
Congress then overrode President Johnson’s veto. The Freedman's Bureau continued to operate until 1872, when Congress, with pressure from white southerners, ended it.
It provided basic welfare services and healthcare
Fed millions of people
Help millions of former slaves find jobs, legalize marriages, and locate lost relatives
Built teacher training institutions and more than 1000 schools for former slaves
It helped create several historically black colleges and universities, including Howard university in Washington DC, and Fisk University in Nashville
In addition, the Freedman's Bureau declared the Mississippi and South Carolina Black Codes of 1865 invalid. Northerners strongly protested the codes, believing that white southerners were trying to bring back slavery. The codes never went into effect, but the states revised their codes. The Freedman's Bureau failed to redistribute land seized or abandoned during the war to former slaves. Most of the land was eventually returned to the original owners.
Public education in the south was very limited before the Civil War. Republicans believed education could aid social progress. During reconstruction, they establish public school systems. In 1867, the Tennessee legislature passed an act to create a public elementary school system. It served both white and black children, but schools were segregated. After the Freedmen's Bureau ceased to exist in 1872, states took over many of the black schools it supported. Black public schools were inadequate, but the white schools were not much better.
Most of the Civil War battles were fought on Southern soil. The war lead to ruin in the south and destroyed it’s slave based economic system. Former slaves became refugees. The north escaped relatively undamaged.
Some union leaders talked about breaking up southern plantations during the war and giving former slaves reparations, which consisted of 40 acres and a mule. This did not happen.
Landowners needed people to work their fields, and former slaves needed to make a living. Many freed slaves in Tennessee and other states turned to their old masters and became tenant farmers or sharecroppers. In these arrangements, landowners rented out sections of their land to black or white farmers. Since farmers had no money for rent, they agreed to give the owner a share of their crops at harvest time.
Tenant farmers often owned animals, equipment, and supplies, and received close to 3/4 of the harvest. Sharecroppers did not own anything; they just contributed labor. Sharecroppers received about 1/2 of the crop. Since landowners also deducted rent and money spent for supplies from the crop allowance, there was a little left for the farmer. It was almost impossible to get ahead as a tenant farmer or sharecropper after the war.