Report of Planters Who Had Sent Their Freedmen Away Unpaid, St. Simons Island, GA, 1865

One of the duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau in the former slaveholding states where it operated, was to oversee labor contracts between Freedmen and planters. Labor contracts stated the terms and obligations of planters and Freedmen. Freedmen agreed to plant, tend and harvest a crop, most often receiving a share of the crop when it was harvested. If a planter turned a Freedman away from the plantation before the crop was harvested and the contract was fulfilled, the Freedmen’s Bureau could intercede to enforce the terms of the labor contract¹.

The document abstracted below² was a report of planters on St. Simons Island, Georgia who had turned Freedmen away before the contract was fulfilled. You may view the microfilmed images of this document on FamilySearch.

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This file was transcribed by Alana Thevenet.

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References Cited

[1] United States, Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands, NARA RG 105, M1903, Roll 77, Descriptive Pamphlet. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. 

[2] “Georgia, Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office Records, 1865-1872,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89GF-PNC1?cc=2331267&wc=SKFF-C6T%3A1439028908%2C1438803607 : 9 December 2014), Saint Simons Island (agent) > Roll 77, Land report and report of planters who had sent their freedmen away unpaid, Aug-Sep 1865 > image 1 of 11; citing NARA microfilm publication M1903 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).