Conclusion

Summary

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people in Union-occupied territory during the American Civil War, three men were selected to determine how freed African Americans could assist in the war effort, what their needs were in the transition from slavery to freedom, and what the social effects of releasing so many men and women from bondage would likely be. This was the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. The conclusion of this book explores how this wartime commission’s investigations leveraged the example of black freedom in free-soil havens abroad to develop its recommendations to the Lincoln administration. Their conclusions helped to structure advice that ultimately gave shape and substance to the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was active among freed slaves in the South throughout the Reconstruction era. As a conclusion to five decades of international free-soil investigation and inspiration, this commission embedded the complexities of black freedom experienced abroad into the foundation of freedom in the United States.