Too Great a Burden to Bear

The Struggle and Failure of the Freedmen's Bureau in Texas

Christopher B. Bean

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780823271764
  9780823268757
• eBook ISBN:
  9780823268771
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

In its brief seven-year existence, the Freedmen's Bureau became the epicenter of the debate about Reconstruction. Historians have only recently begun to focus on the Bureau's personnel in Texas, the individual agents termed the "hearts of Reconstruction." Specifically addressing the historiographical debates concerning the character of the Bureau and its sub-assistant commissioners (SACs), Too Great a Burden to Bear sheds new light on the work and reputation of these agents.

Focusing on the agents on a personal level, author Christopher B. Bean reveals the type of man Bureau officials believed qualified to oversee the Freedpeople's transition to freedom. This work shows that each agent, moved by his sense of fairness and ideas of citizenship, gender, and labor, represented the agency's policy in his subdistrict. These men further ensured the former slaves' right to an education and right of mobility, something they never had while in bondage.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• “A Stranger Amongst Strangers”: Who Were the Subassistant Commissioners?
• “The Post of Greatest Peril”: The E. M. Gregory Era, September 1865–April 1866
• Conservative Phoenix: The J. B. Kiddoo Era, May 1866–Summer 1866
• Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code: The J. B. Kiddoo Era, Summer 1866– November 1866
• The Bureau’s Highwater Mark: The J. B. Kiddoo Era, November 1866–January 1867
• “They Must Vote with the Party That Shed Their Blood . . . In Giving Them Liberty.” Bureau Agents, Politics, and the Bureau’s New Order: The Charles Griffin Era, January 1867–Summer 1867
• Violence, Frustration, and Yellow Fever: The Charles Griffin Era, Summer–Fall 1867
• General Orders No. 40 and the Freedmen’s Bureau’s End: The J. J. Reynolds Era, September 1867–December 1868
• Conclusion: The Subassistant Commissioners in Texas
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index