Viewing page 147 of 262

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

0940

14

It is the cause of much regret among the Freedpeople that the operations of the Bureau all to cease on the 1st January next - The prosperity and social advancement which has attended their progress each year is attributable to that protection with which the government has shielded them in their efforts to realize the blessings of freedmen.

Without the continuance of that protection they will be, as heretofore, defrauded by men who have been accustomed, and still do look upon them as their property. The law it is true protects them; but without the means to employ the law with efficacy, and too ignorant & unsophisticated to take the proper initiatory steps for their protection they becoming disheartened, and hopeless of success, abandon their just claims.

When told that the local civil officers are loyal and good men, they reply that those same local officers were slaveholders before the war, and that altho' loyal to the government