The Terms of Freedom: Black Labor Contracts in the Reconstruction South

Abstract

At the close of the Civil War, Congress established a temporary federal agency, the Freedmen's Bureau, and tasked it with supervising the South's transition from slave to free labor. We estimate the impact of the Bureau on black wages and working conditions by analyzing archival Bureau records, which include labor contracts that were negotiated both with and without a Bureau agent present. After controlling for time, location, and worker characteristics, we find that the Bureau had a negligible impact on worker pay, but a large and positive impact on working conditions. Such conditions included, for example, the right to comfortable quarters, medical care, fixed working hours, and certain wage protections. We also find, however, very large differences across Bureau agents. These differences are often large enough to offset any average effect, leading to both positive and negative (net) agent-specific impacts on workers. We conclude that the Bureau improved working conditions and that the impact of the Bureau was largely driven by the individual agents, rather than by Bureau policy.