Viewing page 209 of 268

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Bureau of Freedmen &c.
Hd Qrs Asst Supt 8th Dist Va.
Salem, Roanoke Co. Va. Feby 2, 1866.

Col. O. Brown,
Asst Com. Bureau of Freedmen &c

Col.
I have the honor to make the following report as to the condition of Bureau affairs in my Sub District.

During the month of January 1866 I have made over fifty Contracts in Roanoke Co. and have found, so far, but few instances of violation of Contract; The majority of the freedmen of this section have made yearly contracts with farmers and others and I can hear of but few idle freedmen in this or the adjoining counties. The whites seem willing to deal fairly by the freedmen, though many of them object to paying for labor done during the summer and fall of 1865, on the grounds that the freedmen did not work faithfully and diligently; that much time was lost, and that the military regulations requiring them to keep all freedmen on their plantations until after the Crop was gathered forced them to support a large number of non-workers. I find these reasons in many cases to be good ones; the freedmen of this section, many of them, immediately after it was announced to them that they were free, having acquired exagerated