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Bureau R.F. and A.L.
Office Asst. Supt Sub-Dist Chest. Co.
Manchester. Va. July 31st 1866.

Capt. Jno. A. McDonnell,
Supt 3rd Dist. Va.

Captain:
I have the honor to submit the following Report of Bureau Affairs in this Sub-District for the month ending July 31st 1866.

The complaints on the part of the Freedmen of ill-treatment from the whites have been far more numerous during the past month than during any previous one. This is doubtless the result in some cases of a consciousness on the part of citizens that, the administration of the laws being in the hands of the Civil Officers, their offices will be lightly treated, if not entirely overlooked.

The expression, used by a white man to a negro in this County, which I quoted in my Report of Bureau Affairs for June - to wit: "We've got you all (referring to the Freedmen) just where we want you & we intend to have laws to keep you down," I think, indicates the feeling existing among a class of men by no means small. The whites seem disposed, like an ill-natured school-master, to exaggerate the bad, & give little credit for the good qualities the negro possesses. It seems difficult to square the boast of southern people that they are the negroes' "best friends" with the fact that they generally look with disfavor upon the efforts made to educate & elevate them, unless, forsooth, it be friendship to a class of people to keep them in intellectual blindness & base subserviency to the will

Transcription Notes:
a lot of words still need figuring out ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-01 08:39:19 "to wit"=namely ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-01 15:47:50 Changed "double the number" to "doubtless the result".