The Freedmen's Bureau

Inadequate funds and less than zealous advocacy plagued the progress of the Freedmen’s Bureau during Reconstruction. Even though advancement was made with the establishment of schools, one of the Bureau’s biggest failures was its inability to distribute abandoned land to freedmen.

• Read W.E.B. Du Bois' interpretation of the Freedmen's Bureau's work.

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.