Metrics
26 File views/ downloads
202 Record Views
Thesis
A Field of Dreams: The Freedmen's Bureau And Their Attempt To Provide Equality For The African American Community, 1865-1872
University of West Florida Libraries
Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida
Summer 2022
Abstract
Towards the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln and Congress established The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau was designed to help the African American community adapt from enslavement to freedom. While the Bureau had plans and goals of how they wanted to help the African American community, their results never matched their ideas, specifically dealing with labor contracts, medical care, and distribution of abandoned and confiscated lands. The Bureau supported unfair and unjust labor contracts the often favored the planters instead of following models of contracts seen in free labor societies such as Port Royal. The hospital system the Bureau created was dysfunctional and often understaffed. The Bureau only provided adequate medical care to African Americans who could labor in the fields leaving many African Americans dependent on the white planter class of the south for medical care. The African American community viewed land as its economic escape from poverty. For decades, African Americans felt a symbolic connection between the land they harvested. Though the Bureau had congressional power to distribute lands, they often chose not to and instead, redistributed it back to the original owners. The Bureau could not achieve the goals that it set for itself causing the African American community to become dependent upon the white planter class of the south once again.
Details
- Title
- A Field of Dreams
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Contributors
- Erin Stone (Committee Chair)Jamin Wells (Committee Member)Mathew Pursell (Committee Member)
- Publisher
- University of West Florida Libraries
- Format
- pdf
- Number of pages
- 99
- Copyright
- Permission granted to the University of West Florida Libraries to digitize and/or display this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires the permission of the copyright holder.
- Identifiers
- 99380092596906600
- Academic Unit
- College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities; History and Philosophy
- Language
- English
- Awarding Institution
- University of West Florida; Master of Arts (MA)
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida