Circular No. 8 from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A wove paper military order, Circular No.8, from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman & Abandoned Lands, prohibiting landowners from expelling sharecroppers without payment. These orders are issued by Battalion Major General Davis Tillson and approved by his commanding officer Oliver Otis Howard, from Augusta, Georgia with the date July 17th 1865. The orders read: [1. Numerous well authenticated reports from officers and / Agents of the Bureau in different parts of the State have been re- / ceived at this office, setting forth that now the crops are nearly / ready to lay by, and the immediate demand for labor has, to some / extent ceased, planters in some instances, are driving off freed- / people employed by them and refusing to pay for their labor.

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