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dent” and “weak- minded.” He informed superiors he could get those three
children “employment” with good white families. Raper asked if he could con-
sider the children orphans “when they cannot, or will not provide for them-
selves . . . always keeping in view their best interests.” Th
is meant apprenticing
them to “a permanent home” instead of changing “homes every year, picking up
the vice of every plantation as they go. ”
Even aft er passage of the state’s law and subsequent policy change, some still
needed direction. As late as August 1868, ignorance about the Bureau’s appren-
tice policy remained. William J. Neely in Victoria bluntly asked, “Is it my duty
to apprentice orphan children?” Even F. P. Wood at Brenham, who concurrently
performed as a justice of the peace, admitted confusion. “[S]ometimes the
employer and oft en the minor and I am at a loss to decide these cases,” he
admitted, “as I fi nd some confl ict of Military orders on the subject.” He asked
whether apprentice contracts issued by civil authorities under the state’s old
statute (the one passed prior to the war) were recognized or were contracts
made under the statute passed by the Eleventh Legislature (the one passed with
the Black Code) the only legitimate ones? Wood wanted further clarifi cation:
“Have [I] the right to annul these letters—except for failure on the part of the
employer or contracting party to fulfi ll his obligations?” Confusion aside, it
appears Wood recognized that many apprentice contracts, although in compli-
ance with state law, were made under less- than- equitable circumstances.
Bureau agents’ responsibilities did not end once a child was bound out. Th
ey
soon discovered some white Texans attempted every way possible to violate
apprentice contracts. David S. Beath voided one, ordering the children returned
aft er the white man left Texas for Mississippi “without complying with the law.”
A woman known as Mrs. Roberts beat her apprentice. Th
e agent in consequence
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fi ned her twenty dollars, and threatened to void the apprentice contract. With a
promise from a white man to pay her fl our and wages in the future, freedwoman
Rachel Hunter agreed to apprentice her daughter Mary to him. He agreed that
if he did not make the promised compensation, the girl would be returned
“anytime [she] was dissatisfi ed.” Despite reneging on the fl our and the girl’s
desire to return to her mother, the white man refused to release her. She com-
plained to the agent who secured her release. Aft er a child had been apprenticed,
a Bureau agent’s role then became “supervisory, except when fl agrant cases of
injustice occur when it becomes his duty to act.”
Of course, they did not uphold apprentice contracts under all circumstances.
Th
ey rarely hesitated to break them if unfair, even if draft ed according to state
law or even with the mother’s approval. In fact, a mother’s parental rights were
not absolute. If a freedwoman bound her child(ren) out in a way they deemed
unjust, Bureau men voided them and returned the child(ren) to parent(s) or
allowed them to earn a living on their own. “No mother has any right to make
such a contract,” stated William H. Sinclair about one unfair apprentice con-
tract, and if she agreed to such a contract, “she is a fool to have done it even [if
she] had the right.” To be sure, agents had the fi nal word, with superiors gener-
ally supporting their actions. Until satisfi ed the child’s welfare was secured,
Bureau agents would not approve the contract.
When infractions occurred, SACs did their best to address them according
to the law or what they saw as equitable. Th
is approach meant releasing freed
children bound out “without the consent of their parents or the children.” On
numerous occasions, the freed community brought such cases to the attention
of local agents: 168 of the 184 cases had a black plaintiff , or more than 91 percent
(91.3). Such instances are frequent enough to contradict later historical claims
that freedwomen (and men for that matter) rarely turned to the agency for assis-
tance or only did so as a means of last resort. “In several cases where minor
children were bound out without consent of parents,” wrote Samuel C. Sloan
from Richmond, “I have upon proper complaint had them delivered up to their
parents . . . [because they] are the legal guardians of and have a right to the
services of their children.” Charles E. Culver, witnessing parents and siblings of
illegally bound children pleading with planters for their release, reported that
these “new time Slave Holders” oft en times responded to the parent’s pleas with
“go to Hell or the Bureau.” Although Culver intervened, he admitted his impo-
tence without troops, since they were “the most infl uential and at the same
time some of the worst men” in his district. Gregory Barrett admitted “very
few of the freedpeople can read [and] those interested immediately have no
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Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code
Knowledge of the Apprentice[ships] until ‘aft er’ its consummation by the
Court.” When he found such situations, he “revoke[d] all such acts of indenture,
unless otherwise ordered.” William G. Kirkman at Boston returned a freed boy
to his grandfather once the “evidence [was] considered.” On a diff erent occa-
sion, he annulled a contract when the white defendant refused to appear at his
offi
ce. Parental rights even extended to fathers. His personal philosophy and
outlook about nineteenth- century domesticity, child welfare, and free labor, of
course, greatly infl uenced a Bureau man’s decision than any mandated policy.
Walter B. Pease at Houston, for example, returned a child to his father, deeming
him “a hard working industrious man” with the ability “to support him.” If they
deemed the contract illegal or not properly fulfi lled, Bureau men did not hesi-
tate to return children to parents, grandparents, and even siblings.
Th
ese men held not just whites to the contract and law but also the appren-
ticed and their parents. Of those cases where a defi nite winner and loser could
be determined, whites (both women and men) won 41 times out of 184, or
approximating 22 percent. A local judge came to Louis W. Stevenson with a
complaint that the child bound to him had run away. Stevenson found “no
question [the child] was treated well” and returned the child. Anytime parents
of bound children complained about illegality or mistreatment, agents rarely
hesitated to investigate a claim, void a contract, or fi ne the guilty if they found
the accusations valid. If they found the claims baseless, of course, they upheld
/>
the apprentice contract. J. D. Vernay at Goliad investigated a black grandmoth-
er’s complaint about abuse against her apprenticed granddaughter. What Ver-
nay discovered was every time a new Bureau agent arrived, the old woman
solicited him for help. Not only did the girl want to stay with the white man, but
Vernay thought “the girl is much better treated than if she was with her
grandma.” P. Johnson, a white man, brought a complaint against Guy Johnson,
an apprenticed freed boy. Aft er his son had been apprenticed, with “his con-
sent” at the time, Robert Johnson changed his mind and took his boy back. P.
Johnson turned to the Bureau for recourse. William G. Kirkman investigated.
He determined the apprenticeship valid and P. Johnson to be fulfi lling its stipu-
lations. Guy Johnson was ordered returned.
To a great extent, SACs believed their problems would be greatly lessened
if only freedmen fulfi lled their paternal responsibilities. As historian Mary
Farmer- Kaiser stated, they had to be taught their “manly responsibilities.” Th
is
included caring for his children and their mother. For example, N. H. Randlett
at Bryan heard a claim by one freedwoman that a freedman named Frank had
promised marriage, and she was pregnant with his child. Although “the evidence
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is not suffi
cient neither are appearances suffi
cient” to prove the pregnancy,
Randlett ordered Frank to support the woman “in event of its birth by the time
. . . it will be born.” In the city of Austin, Elisa Morgan, a freedwoman of “indif-
ferent character” with “several children by diff erent men,” approached agent
Henry Young for help. Young found that for the last two years she had lived with
a white man named Presser Hopkins, who had a bad reputation. According to
Morgan, she “got him in the family way” as recently as two weeks ago and was
apparently pregnant by him, despite the relationship being less than amicable.
To complicate matters, Hopkins had already agreed to marry another. Young,
who believed Hopkins was “dating” both women simultaneously, inquired to
superiors about bastard laws, which Texas did not have at the time. Informing
his subdistrict had many bastard children, Young suggested “a precedent [be]
given” so that “many of their mothers would bring actions against the fathers.”
Agents even held white men responsible for their children with freedwomen. By
holding fathers accountable, they hoped to ensure not just that dependency
would remain a private rather than public matter, but that far fewer freedpeople
would become wards of the state.
A few men defi ned the child’s best interest very broadly, believing mothers
“should not be deprived of such guardianship even at [their] request.” Anthony
M. Bryant at Sherman boasted that the state’s apprenticeship law “in my Dis-
trict [is] a dead letter” and “the men who made [this law should] be ashamed of
[it] or at least I think they ought to be.” In Corpus Christi, John Dix likened
the practice to slavery. He refused to allow “colored children [to be] appren-
ticed to white people, for . . . most people would treat them as slaves. . . .” As we
have seen, William Longworth also believed its negatives far outweighed any
positives. At La Grange, Isaac Johnson likewise had nothing but contempt for
apprenticing. “[A]ny Law,” he sermonized, “that will place any considerable
number of freed children under the control and power of the white people of
this County with their present feeling and disposition towards the black race” is
egregious. Charles Haughn concurred: it “only makes slaves of the children. ”
Bryant, Dix, Johnson, and Haughn, however, were not the norm. Most sub-
assistant commissioners realized its need or, in the words of one historian,
countenanced it as “an unavoidable evil in the immediacy of emancipation.”
Th
erefore, they had a less antagonistic approach to the system. To guard against
dependency, apprenticeship would exist. According to recent scholarship,
Bureau men were “undeniably shaped” by their notions of free labor and when
whites abused the apprenticeship system, these men, off ended at the “denial of
the principles of free labor,” backed freed parents “who worked to release [their
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Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code
children] from such unjust bonds. . . .” To preclude dependency and protect the
freed children, parental rights of freedpeople occasionally were set aside for
those of their children and the common good. Agents found themselves in a bit
of a pickle, pulled in opposing (and oft en incompatible) directions: the emotion
of aggrieved parents, the interests of the children, and the interests of the state
and public. Attempting to square this circle, they had to “use their best judg-
ment” or “do as was right and proper.” Th
ey tried to account for the child’s
wishes, white’s intentions, and the parent’s moral state and fi nancial ability.
With so much information to “process,” agents relied heavily upon common
sense and their sense of fairness. Such an approach precluded uniformity,
resulting in varying actions from the excesses of William Longworth, to the
one- sided courses of Anthony M. Bryant and John Dix, to the case- by- case
approach by the vast majority of others. Not all parties, of course, were satisfi ed.
On occasion, perhaps, they probably erred. More oft en than not, they made
what they believed to be the best, most just, and fairest decision according to the
facts, the law, and, most important, what they saw as the child’s interest.
If the apprentice contract was shown to be illegal, these men did not hesitate
to break it. Th
ey realized apprenticing, although an imperfect solution to an
unacceptable societal problem, was open to abuse. Bureau men in Texas conse-
quently did not attack the institution of apprenticeship. Th
ey did not attack
apprenticeships as vigorously as did agents in Maryland, where local offi
cials
ultimately abandoned the practice altogether. Texas Bureau men did not
“strongly advocate” or, at times, “demand” binding out as many agents did in
Tennessee. Nor did they always uphold contracts “at the expense of the view of
the primacy of parental rights” as many did in North Carolina. Th
ose in Texas
followed a course similar to the one in Georgia and Virginia. Th
ey decided
apprentice cases generally in favor of parental (freedpeople) rights. Th
is
occurred only in conjunction with what they believed to be in the child’s best
interest not necessarily, in the words of one historian’s claim, because they
believed the practice “a legaliz
ed form of child slavery and forced labor. ”
Th
is juggling act, however, has been a source of criticism, especially when
agents did anything other than return freed children to their mothers or rela-
tives. As historians have begun to focus more attention on gender in Recon-
struction, some have criticized Bureau men’s relationship with apprenticeship.
According to this view, these men, at best, displayed insensitivity and chauvin-
ism. At the worst, their misogynistic ways wrecked homes, circumscribed
parental rights, and helped to destroy the freedpeople’s familial integrity. His-
torian Laura Edwards, for example, concludes they overlooked “the blatant
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inequities of the system if not for the freedmen themselves, who kept agents’
attention riveted on the issue, whether they liked it or not.” Lynda J. Morgan
likened their actions to the “interstate slave trade.” She concludes “occasion-
ally” SACs broke apprenticeship contracts, but in general they “colluded with
planters in the apprenticeship system.” Leslie A. Schwalm, another gender his-
torian, is critical of their “ignorance of extended families and the cultural sig-
nifi cance of a community’s sense of mutual duty and obligation among extended
and fi ctive kin [and] the reconstitution and defense of black family life. . . .”
Even historians rather sympathetic to agents’ relations with the black family
unit are quite critical of its use and defense of apprenticeship. “Bureau policy
makers may have objected to the use of apprenticeship as a method of racial
control,” concluded Mary Farmer- Kaiser, “but the same simply could not be
said when it came to using the practice as a way to limit the rights of mothers.”
Charges of racism and sexism, of course, lie beneath the surface of all these
criticisms as these white men (as well as most other nineteenth- century white
Americans) placed more importance on the white family and male masculinity,
since they believed freedmen (and in some cases, freedwomen) “lacked the
independence and responsibility necessary for parenthood. ”
Later indictments notwithstanding, apprenticeship was an accepted way to