THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
an immediate loan of $10,000 was necessary and 
that it could not be secured from outside sources. 
So they asked him for and secured a loan of 
$10,000 in United States bonds which he, Doug- 
lass, had on deposit. Douglass declared that it 
was with difficulty that he recovered the $10,000. 
When he discovered that the trustees and offi- 
cials were withdrawing their deposits, he turned 
to Congress for relief. 
STATEMENT OF DOUGLASS 
In his Life and Times, Douglass narrates his 
experience as president of the moribund bank. 
The account is so interesting and so well de- 
scribes the situation that it is here reproduced: 
It is not altogether without a feeling of humiliation 
that I must narrate my connection with the “Freedmen’s 
Savings and Trust Company.” This was an institution 
designed to furnish a place of security and profit for the 
hard earnings of the colored people, especially at the 
South. Though its title was the “Freedmen’s Savings and 
Trust Company,” it is known as the “Freedmen’s Bank.” 
According to its managers it was to be this and something 
more. There was something missionary in its composition, 
and it dealt largely in exhortations as well as promises. 
The men connected with its management were generally 
church members, and reputed eminent for their piety. 
Some of its agents had been preachers of the “Word? 
Their aim was now to instill into the minds of the un- 
tutored Africans lessons of sobriety, wisdom, and economy, 
and to show them how to rise in the world. Like snow- 
flakes in winter, circulars, tracts and other papers were, 
by this benevolent institution, scattered among the sable 
millions, and they were told to “look” to the Freedmen’s 
Bank and “live.” Branches were established in all the 
8 Bruce Report, pp. 236, and Appendix, p. 44; Ho. Misc. Doc. No. 
16, 43 Cong., 2 Sess.; New York Herald, May 1, 1874; Douglas Report, 
p. 178; Douglass, Life and Times, pp. 488-490, 
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