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10

Office assistant Commissioner
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen
and Abandoned Lands
Montgomery Ala. August 30th 1865

General Order }
        No 11 } 
For the purposes of this Bureau that portion of the State of Alabama within this jurisdiction is hereby divided into the following Districts. soon as practicable a Superintendent will be assigned to each District. Until such assignment is made the present Assistant Commissioner will report as heretofore.

I    Mobile District 
Headquarters at Mobile 
Counties: Mobile, Baldwin, Washington Clarke, Monroe, Conecuh, Choctaw.

II    Selma District
Head Quarters at Selma 
Counties: Dallas, Perry, Shelby, Jefferson, Blount, Wilcox, Bibb, Talladega, Randolph, Calhoun, St Clair.

III    Montgomery District
Head Quarters at Montgomery 
Counties: Butler, Lowndes, Montgomery, Autauga, Coosa, Macon, Russell,  Chambers, Tallapoosa.

IV    Troy District
Head Quarters at Troy
Counties: Covington, Coffee, Pike, Dale, Henry, Barbour

V    Demopolis District 
Head Quarters at Demopolis
Counties: Marengo, Lumpton, Greene, Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Marion, Walker

By order of
Brig. Gen. Wager Swayne

A.A.G.

11

Office Assistant Commissioner
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen
and Abandoned Lands
Montgomery Ala. August 30. 1865

General Order }
        No 12 }
I   All contracts with freedmen, for labor, for the period of one month, and over, must be reduced to writing, approved by an agent of this Bureau, and one copy deposited with him. In proper cases he shall require security.

II   For plantation labor:
1st Such contracts will be made with heads of families. They will embrace the labor of all the members of the family, able to work.

2nd The employer will stipulate to provide good and sufficient food, quarters, and medical attendance in the entire family, and such further communication as may be agreed on.

3rd Such contracts will be a lien upon the crop, of which not more than one half will be removed until full payment is made, and the contract released by an agent of this Bureau, or a Justice of the Peace, in case it is impracticable to procure the services of such agent. 

III   The usual remedies for violation of contracts to the employer, of forfeiture of wages due, and to the freedman, of damages secured by lien, or personal security, are deemed to be sufficient and all that are practicable.  

IV  But as many persons have not yet learned the building force of a contract, and that freedom does not mean living without labor, it is further ordered that where any employer under this order, shall make oath before a Justice of the Peace, acting as an Agent of this