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 4: Letters Received. 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.
The letters received by the Assistant Commissioner and the Assistant Adjutant General are in two unbound series—one of registered letters, the other of unregistered letters. The registered letters received, July 1865 – June 1869, are arranged in the same order in which they were entered in the registers of letters received. The unregistered letters received, July 1865 – March 1869, are those that were received by the Assistant Commissioner’s office but were never entered in the registers of letters received. They are arranged by year and thereunder alphabetically by initial letter of surname or office of correspondent. According to this filing system, letters received from the Assistant Commissioner when he was away from his office at Raleigh are filed under the letter “A,” those from the Commissioner at Washington, D.C., under the letter “C,” those from the Office of the Secretary of War or the Adjutant General’s Office under “W” for War Department, and those from the State of North Carolina under the letter “N.” The National Archives has prepared a name index for these letters and has filmed it at the beginning of each roll of unregistered letters. Have questions? Please contact the Freedmen's Bureau Team. These images were provided to the National Museum of African American History and Culture courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration and FamilySearch International. The original records are located in the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives Record Group 105.