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Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865 to 1872

Freedmen's Bureau Records

After the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau helped newly freed people reunite with family, secure wages, testify against violence, legalize marriages, and go to school. Its officers wrote down what they saw: criminal cases, labor disputes, reports of outrages, marriages, and letters from families still searching for one another. Every case below comes from transcribed Bureau record books held by the National Archives, and every name we read is published here for free, forever.

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Helping descendants of chattel slavery find their people in the records that tried to erase them.

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Murder

Texas · Texas

Osborn KingWilliam JonesKitJohn Echols

Osborn King and William Jones provided testimony about the killing of Kit by John Echols.

The record

Testimony of Osborn King and William Jones, Freedmen, in relation to the killing of "Kit" by his former master John Echols

Enslavers named in this record

John Echols
Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Texas Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865 - 1869 National Archives Microfilm Publication M821 Roll 32 "Miscellaneous Records Relating to Murders and Other Criminal Offenses Committed in Texas 1865 - 1868"
View the original record book

Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives. Transcriptions from the Freedmen's Bureau Online.