Amid raging controversy, the federally empowered Freedmen's Bureau set out to transform the South by securing justice, education, and jobs for freed slaves—and these lessons plunge students straight into the center of the bureau's difficulties.
Evaluating primary source documents (federal legislation, diary entries, letters, bureau records, military court communiques, land regulations, labor contracts) that represent different points of view, students gain an understanding of the successes and failures of Reconstruction.
Sample pages