14 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
class, grew out of the various “departments of 
Negro affairs” and other attempts that had been 
made during the war to regulate the life and 
work of the Negroes who had come under Fed- 
eral control. The Bureau, designed to act some- 
what as a guardian for the race, was by the 
beginning of 1866 organized in all the former 
slave states. It was administered in the War 
Department at Washington by a Commissioner- 
General, O. O. Howard, under whom in each 
state there was an assistant commissioner with 
numerous district superintendents, local agents, 
inspectors, school superintendents, and teachers. 
The confiscated Confederate property, public 
and private, was turned over to the Bureau 
which continued to administer the numerous 
refugee colonies for the year 1865 and then dis- 
banded them. The institution, by aiding in the 
support of missionaries and teachers, engaged 
extensively in church work and education. Con- 
tracts had first to be approved by the official of 
the Bureau who had supervision over all matters 
relating to Negro labor, such as contracts, time, 
wages, and treatment. The subordinates who 
were in immediate control of the Negroes were 
usually ignorant of local economic conditions 
and frequently were corrupt and arbitrary; their 
activities aroused false hopes among the Ne- 
groes, unsettled industry, and prevented the early 
working out of a free labor system. The relief 
work of the Bureau lasted for more than two 
years and in some sections resulted in consider- 
able demoralization.? 
5 For Freedmen’s Bureau Acts, see Fleming, Doc. History of Recon. 
I, p. 319 and Peirce, Freedmen’s Bureau, passim.