Contracts could produce exactly the kind of subordinated labor force ex-slave owners desired. The bureau’s fear of black dependency often created black dependency by driving freedpeople into contracts that impoverished them and made them reliant on their old masters. Bureau agents were right in thinking that the mere fact of a contract forced the white employer to recognize the black employee as his legal equal, but this triumph was purely nominal and yielded only marginal benefits to black laborers. At their extreme, contracts were little more than slavery under another name.
