The Bureau of Refugees, Freemen, and Abandoned Lands, often referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established on March 3, 1865. The duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau included supervision of all affairs relating to refugees, freedmen, and the custody of abandoned lands and property. These documents come from the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of North Carolina, Series 9: Reports of Operations
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Two series of unbound narrative reports were received by the Assistant Commissioner: annual reports from staff officers and semimonthly, monthly, and quarterly reports from subdistrict officers. In addition, there is a series of statistical reports.
The annual reports from staff officers, 1866 and 1867, are arranged by year. They include reports from the Surgeon in Chief, the Chief Quartermaster, the Superintendent of Education, and other subordinate officers.
Semimonthly, monthly, and quarterly reports from officers in charge of subdivisions are arranged by year and thereunder by month. These reports, August–October 1865 and June 1867–December 1868, contain information on destitution, the number of rations given to white and black persons, crop production, the number of sick, and the number of contracts made.
The trimonthly, semimonthly, and monthly statistical reports of operations, October 1865–October 1866, January–December 1867, and July–August 1868 are arranged chronologically. These reports, on printed forms, include information about the number of farms worked, contracts made, rations supplied to freedmen, number of people cared for, amount of property held by the Bureau, wages paid to freedmen, and remarks on general conditions. Almost all of these were sent to the Assistant Commissioner by his subordinate officers, but a few summary reports on operations prepared by the Assistant Commissioner are interfiled in the series.