Week 35: Community

Reports are not the only information preserved in the Freedmen's Bureau records, which we began examining in detail during Week 33: Bitter Prejudice. The Freedmen's Bureau, according to The Library of Virginia, focused on "establishing hospitals and schools, providing rations, supervising the creation of labor contracts between freedmen and planters, and ensuring justice." There are a mass of letters - some brief, others verbose; some in neat cursive as if deliberated and others scrawled a little too quickly for full intelligence from the script. All of them reveal the kinds of cases the commanding officers had to investigate in lands as yet still hostile to the US government. The letters cover everything from reimbursement of funds to firsthand accounts by residents of injustice.

The commissioner reports we just read (Week 33: Bitter Prejudice and Week 34: Need for Radical Change) noted the confirmation of marriages as another activity of the Freedmen's Bureau, but what they didn't mention were requests for reuniting parents with children that had been sold before the eradication of slavery, as noted by the following letters.

"Information is desired of Jeff Donnavay, colored, aged 14, bought in December 1863 by... of Richmond, Va... His mother... is very desirous of learning his whereabouts, and this application for information is made at her request" (Letter from McDonnell, Winchester, VA, April 22, 1868).

"Information is desired of Robert Donnavay, colored, aged 16, bought in December 1863 by... of Farmville, Prince Edward County, Va... He is the son of ..., at whose request this application for information is made" (Letter from McDonnell, Winchester, VA, April 22, 1868).

Another letter captures the enigmatic nature of communication in Shenandoah County, not only between Freedmen's Bureau commissioners, but also between civilians and the commissions.

"A colored woman named Emily (a very large woman) left this place last week, and in defiance of my order, took with her... a minor (a girl) named Alice. Please have the said girl sent to me. The woman must be made of course to pay expenses" (Letter from Hall, Woodstock, VA, October 30, 1866).

From Donnell to Hall, stationed in Woodstock, VA: "In reply to your communication... in which you ask if you are authorized to issue an order to the employer of a colored person, (who hired him from his other owner) to pay said colored man for his services since January 1, 1863, instead of to the heirs of his former owner - you are respectfully informed that you have no authority to issue such an order" (Letter from Donnell, Winchester, VA, January 10, 1868).

Helping African Americans living in Shenandoah County, VA, as well as throughout the state, was a balancing act. The Freedmen's Bureau aimed to do what they could to help people become more than mere property, whose purpose was to serve the needs of wealthier white families. When families are dispersed, when the memory of enslavement still tarnishes the hope of paid work, when people own no land from which they can grow food or a cash crop, and when educational opportunities are limited, a handful of people can only do so much. If a community is not willing to work together to create opportunities of equality and commitment to one another's welfare, even through charitable organizations, then it's not a community. Community is more than just people living in the same location. Community also includes commonality of culture, ethos, or other shared goals. Community means common unity. People don't have to look the same, but they should promote fairness in matters of justice. As we have seen and will continue to see, this was not happening in Shenandoah County, Virginia, after the Civil War. And that understanding is imperative to know when a community is naming public spaces together.