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 19: Records Relating to Indentures.
Please help us transcribe these records to learn more about the experiences of formerly enslaved men and women in North Carolina during the Reconstruction Era.
Have questions about how to transcribe tables in these documents? View special directions here.
Another area where Bureau officials were concerned with freedmen's right was indenturing or apprenticeships. Underaged children who were not or could not be supported by their parents were apprenticed by Bureau officials to persons who would be responsible for their upbringing and welfare. There is an unbound series of indentures, September 1865–August 1867, arranged chronologically. Some cancellations are among the 1867 indentures, probably because in that year the North Carolina Supreme Court invalidated indentures.
A register of indentures, December 1865–June 1866, arranged in numerical sequence, provides the date, name of the person indentured, name of the officer who officiated, and name of the custodian to whom the person was indentured.