Question

Who were called “freedmen” during the reconstruction period?

Answer 1

Bureau of Refugees are called “freedmen” during the reconstruction period.

Explanation:

Freedmen's Bureau period is (1865 to 1872), during the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War.  

A freedman or freed-woman denotes enslaved person who has been released from slavery.

Historical says about the enslaved people were freed either by manumission (got granted freedom by their captor-owners) or emancipation (granted freedom by their part of a larger group).

Popular name for the ‘United States Bureau of Refugees’, Abandoned Lands, and Freedmen, established by political parties like Congress to provide practical aid to 4,000,000 newly freed African and Americans in their transition from ‘slavery to freedom’.

Answer 2

Freedmen's Bureau, during the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War, popular name for the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, established by Congress to provide practical aid to 4,000,000 newly freed African Americans in their transition from slavery to freedom.

Explanation:

• The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on land confiscated or abandoned during the war.
• Despite handicaps of inadequate funds and poorly trained personnel, the bureau built hospitals for, and gave direct medical assistance to, more than 1,000,000 freedmen. More than 21,000,000 rations were distributed to impoverished blacks as well as whites.
• Less success was achieved in civil rights, for the bureau’s own courts were poorly organized and short-lived, and only the barest forms of due process of law for freedmen could be sustained in the civil courts. Its most notable failure concerned the land itself.
• The Freedmen’s Bureau , a government agency established to aid former slaves, oversaw some 3,000 schools across the South, and ran hospitals and healthcare facilities for the freedmen.