Freedmen Quotes
Ever since the Civil War, there has been an imbalance between the areas of the country with large unemployed populations and those areas where jobs were available. Even in 1870, the authorities were trying to get the unemployed to relocate but this was a hard thing to do at the time—physically, economically, and psychologically. It was not until the 2nd World War when huge numbers of Blacks migrated from areas of poor economic prospects in the South to areas of opportunity in the North. Also, note the classic welfare dilemma expressed whereby if humanitarian assistance is provided, people will not be desperate enough to move to areas with better opportunities.
Realizing that as a mulatto she was subject to claims of slavery in New Mexico, she tool the precaution of getting this affidavit to protect her freedom. An interesting side note is that she states that she is “not bound by marriage or slavery.” For a woman the state of marriage meant the loss of most of her civil rights and was even then put in a similar category to slavery.
The Freedmen’s Bureau was an institution established after the Civil War to provide assistance to the newly emancipated and free slaves. Every constructive step taken by the Bureau was opposed and obstructed by “unreconstructed” Southerners and some Northerners. They had very limited resources and there was little known technically about how to accomplish their mission. However, tens of thousands of individual new freed Negroes profited immensely and there were some systemic successes such as Du Bois describes Quotation 643644. There were also some failures as described herein.
