March 1865, President Lincoln established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, typically known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. Headed by General Oliver O. Howard, the bureau’s capacious responsibilities included providing food and clothing to newly freed slaves, helping them locate family members who had been sold to other plantation owners, assisting the jobless in finding employment, setting up hospitals and schools (including higher education institutions such as Clark Atlanta and Howard University), and partnering with black people as they adjusted to life as free people.
