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Created by Congress in March 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, supervised the transition of the slaves from bondage to freedom. The bureau was directed by a national commissioner; the office in each former Confederate state was headed by an assistant commissioner, who administered bureau operations; and field personnel (subassistant commissioners ) stationed in the major cities and towns across the region conducted daily bureau business. Often ignored in the historical literature, these men who constantly interacted with the black community became the heart of the Reconstruction process. Throughout their tenure, they faced numerous obstacles and stupefying responsibilities. Texas provides a unique opportunity to observe the actions of the local agents and the many barriers they encountered. The state is geographically huge, and local bureau officers supervised enormous areas, often covering 1,500 square miles. These men had to contend with a great deal of whiteon -black violence and numerous outrages perpetrated among whites themselves. Although postrevisionist historians have seen the agency as being too solicitous of planter approval and too conservative where black interests were involved, Texas agents did not necessarily conform to this pattern. The Freedmen’s Bureau has often been explored nationally and at the state level from an administrative perspective. The focus has been upon either Oliver Otis Howard, the national commissioner, or the agency in a particular southern state. More often than not, the organization has been condemned. Originally, historians believed it to be politically involved and too supportive of black equality. In current studies, the bureau is castigated for not doing enough to assist the newly freed slaves and for dashing their efforts at autonomy.1 Regardless, any executive-level view tells us almost Nine GUARDIAN OF THE FREEDPEOPLE Texas Freedmen’s Bureau Agents and the Black Community 186 Freedmen’s Bureau Agents and African American Politicians nothing about how personnel in the field worked for the legal and political equality of blacks. A brief look at the field agents who served in the Texas Freedmen’s Bureau is necessary: how they interacted with the black community, the problems and difficulties they confronted, and what steps the bureau took to ensure that agents fulfilled their responsibilities to the freedpeople. Intertwined with an agent’s duties were his relations with civil authorities and planters, who constantly attempted to discredit the bureau and its personnel. These agents, or subassistant commissioners, have also been viewed disdainfully . “When it came to the Bureau agents below the rank of assistant commissioner,” stated John A. Carpenter, Oliver Otis Howard “was not so fortunate.” He “had little control” over the men picked by the state bureau chief, and Carpenter claims that even those who headed the state agency had little voice in the selection of men who supervised local districts . The state commissioners had to depend upon officers who were detailed from the regular army (generally from the Veteran Reserve Corps) and had been disabled in some fashion during the war.2 This seems to be an unnecessarily negative view of all bureau agents. Throughout its existence, the Bureau lacked manpower. A shortage of funds meant it could not pay civilian agents, and the army consistently mustered out individuals. Before his death, Carpenter identified 2,441 bureau agents who had served throughout the organization’s existence. At its peak, wrote Eric Foner, the bureau never employed “more than 900 agents in the entire South.” For example, Alabama had a maximum of only 20 field agents, and but a dozen served in Mississippi in 1866. Eastern Texas, which is the same size as Alabama and Mississippi together, never had more than 65, and for much of the bureau’s tenure the numbers allotted to cover such a vast region remained abysmally low.3 Recent scholarship has seriously revised the negative portrait of the Texas agents. Cecil Harper, Jr., finds that a total of 202 men served as subassistant commissioners during the Bureau’s Texas tenure. “Those who served as assistant commissioners in Texas made every attempt to secure men of ability and proven loyalty to serve as local agents,” writes Harper, “but clearly, they were not always successful.” Some agents, Harper notes, were drunks, functionally illiterate, or criminally dishonest, but these cannot be characterized as “typical.” In general, the agents’ commitment was real, and overall they can be characterized as men of ability, integrity, and honesty, “who did the best they could.”4 [3.144.189.177] Project...

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