The Freedmen’s Bureau in Virginia
April 19, 2018 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
| Pay-what-you-pleaseEvent Navigation
Hear the remarkable story of the Freedmen’s Bureau in war-torn Virginia after the Civil War.
Freedmen’s Bureau office in Richmond, VA. (Harper’s Weekly, December 23, 1865)
Emmanuel Dabney will discuss the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (usually referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau) work in Virginia in the aftermath of the Civil War at the Missing Soldiers Office on April 19, 2018 at 6 PM. The presentation will be “pay-what-you-please.”
The Freedmen’s Bureau was created in March 1865 to oversee the abandoned property of Southerners and provide aid to white Unionist refugees and the recently freed people. However, competing viewpoints from white Republicans, Democrats, and black and white Southerners created much disappointment for the recently freed people, who pretty rapidly took up most of the Bureau’s time and effort.
Despite racialized violence, the Bureau was able to provide some assistance to the freed people and help lay the groundwork for their futures in the aftermath of generations of enslavement and their own resistance to slavery.
Emmanuel Dabney is the curator at Petersburg National Battlefield in Petersburg, Virginia.
