The Freedmen's Savings Bank

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 175265076X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-129631

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fleming, Walter Lynwood http://d-nb.info/gnd/120660560X

Title:: The Freedmen's Savings Bank

Place of publication:: Chapel Hill

Publisher:: Univ. of North Carolina Press

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: x, 170 S.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. Origin of the Freedmen's Savings Bank

Collection:: Economics Books

20 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK allot it to the government for savings which would be paid to the soldiers when discharged. Since most Negro soldiers were unable to reach their families, the “allotment” system enabled some willing ones to save part of their pay until they were mustered out and in need of the funds.! The first bank established for Negroes only was organized in New Orleans in 1864 by General N. P. Banks, who called it the “Free Labor Bank.” There were several thousand Negro sol- diers in Bank’s command and many “free men of color” with property in New Orleans, and on the plantations in the parishes under Federal control there were other thousands of half-free Negroes who received or were promised some sort of pay for their work. General Banks was much interested in his “free labor department,” which was designed for the purpose of transform- ing the late slaves into free working men. It was mainly for these “free laborers” that the bank was established, though soldiers were also en- couraged to make deposits. The bank was a suc- cess, according to report, though full information concerning it is lacking. Not only were individ- ual deposits received but the officers in charge of the Negro “home colonies” placed in the bank the proceeds from the plantation sales. For ex- ample, the deposits of the Rost Home Colony amounted to $21,605.83.2 1 Senate Rept., No. 440, 46 Cong., 2 Sess. (1880); Booklet, Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Co. (1872). 2 This colony was established on the Destrehan plantation of Judge Pierre A, Rost. Probably the money came to the bank through the Freed- men’s Bureau. —House Exec. Doc., No. 144, 44 Cong., 1 Sess.; Phelps, Louisiana, p. 330; Howard’s Reminiscences; Peirce, Freedmen’s Bureau, pp. 18, 123; Banks, “Emancipated Labor in Louisiana,” New York Times,

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