Did Emancipation Bring Freedom?

The Emancipation Proclamation did bring freedom to most slaves. However it has to be determined what �level’ of freedom was attained. As many former slaves were now �officially’ freemen, yet they found themselves in the exact same economic, political and social situation that they had been in, whilst enslaved.

After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, wherever the Union army advanced into Confederate States, they would leave behind a trail of freed slaves. This was a major problem, because the former slaves effectively became refugees. Trying to forge an economically independent life was virtually impossible for most as they had no food, shelter, and clothing and because of this lack of amenities, they were very susceptible to disease. �They come to school with singular diligence, week after week, bare-footed and bare-limbed, with garments ragged and thin, shivering over their lessons from cold and wet, but still persistent to learn.’ Most slaves had no education or practical skills to help them gain employment in the future, until the freemen’s bureau helped establish some education for slaves.

Many slaves were also confused as to what this new found �freedom’ meant for them. It can be presumed that they knew what it meant in the literal sense, yet in practicality many were confused. Probably just as confused as their white Union counterparts. �They were constantly coming to us to ask what peace meant for them? Would it be peace indeed? Or oppression, hostility and servile subjugation?’

A major problem for freed slaves especially after the war was over was the whites in the South. The blacks feared the southern whites as �they knew the temper of the baffled rebels as did no others.’ The freedmen were aprehensive towards the U.S governments appeasing policies towards the Southern whites as they knew what what would happen to them if the Southern �rebels’ were left to attend to the newly freed former slaves. �...left us entirely at the mercy of these subjugated but unconverted rebels.’ Many of the whites in the South, supported the Confederacy during war-time and many were former slave owners who resented the fact that they had lost their property. Most Southern whites saw themselves as racially superior and in many cases the old master/slave hierarchy was re-established under a new system.

Sharecropping is an example of this new system. The freedmen would be �loaned’ a portion of land by a landowner, usually their former owner, they would work the land, give a certain percentage of the crop to the landowner and keep the rest of it to sell off. However to work land you need seeds and tools which cost money. Of course the former slaves had no money and so had to get themselves into debt to finance purchasing equipment. If there was a bad harvest, they wouldn’t be able to pay off their loans and they would be getting themselves into further debt. Some former slaves did do very well off of this system and managed to purchase their own land, yet for the majority it wasn’t so beneficial.

A more or less identical copy of slavery under a different name was the �Black Codes’ which were issued in many Southern States post-1865. The actual laws were passed at state and local level in a direct attempt to control the labor, movements and activities of all blacks and not just the former slaves.

The laws differed from different states and communities yet the general jist of it was that a black man or woman could not breach a defined curfew, rent a house, go to public meetings, sell, buy, and generally do anything a free man would expect without a written permit from their �employer’. Employer being a politically correct term at the time for slave master. Any black person found in breach of these laws was too be fined a set amount and thus restricted them doing pretty much anything.

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands was established in March 3, 1865. It was setup to try to tackle the problems that the newly freedmen were facing such as lack of housing, education and employment. The Bureau was not appropriated a budget of its own, but was instead commissioned as a subsidiary of the War Department and depended upon it for funds and staff. In the beginning, the Freedmen's Bureau did not