[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FREEDMEN'S BUREAU PRESERVATION ACT: ARE THESE RECONSTRUCTION ERA
RECORDS BEING PROTECTED
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 18, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-277
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
75-060 PDF WASHINGTON : 2001
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: Toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area
(202)512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Earl Pierce, Professional Staff Member
Elizabeth Seong, Clerk
Trey Henderson, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 18, 2000................................. 1
Statement of:
Millender-McDonald, Hon. Juanita, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California...................... 4
Swygert, H. Patrick, president, Howard University,
accompanied by Dr. Thomas C. Battle, director, the Howard
University Mooreland-Spingarn Research Center; and Dr.
Elizabeth Clarke Lewis, director of the public history
project, Howard University................................. 8
Washington, Reginald, African American Genealogy Subject Area
Specialist, National Archives and Records Administration;
Michael Kurtz, Assistant Archivist of the United States for
Records Services, National Archives and Records
Administration; Professor Tony Burroughs, adjunct professor
of genealogy, Chicago State University; and Henry Wiencek,
resident fellow, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.... 24
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Burroughs, Professor Tony, adjunct professor of genealogy,
Chicago State University, prepared statement of............ 36
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Kurtz, Michael, Assistant Archivist of the United States for
Records Services, National Archives and Records
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 31
Swygert, H. Patrick, president, Howard University, prepared
statement of............................................... 12
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 7
Washington, Reginald, African American Genealogy Subject Area
Specialist, National Archives and Records Administration,
prepared statement of...................................... 26
Wiencek, Henry, resident fellow, Virginia Foundation for the
Humanities, prepared statement of.......................... 49
FREEDMEN'S BUREAU PRESERVATION ACT: ARE THESE RECONSTRUCTION ERA
RECORDS BEING PROTECTED
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn and Kanjorski.
Also present: Representative Millender-McDonald.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief
counsel; Earl Pierce, professional staff member; Bonnie Heald,
director of communications; Elizabeth Seong, clerk; George
Frazer, intern; Pearl-Alice Marsh, senior policy advisor for
Representative Millender-McDonald; Trey Henderson, minority
counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
Government Management, Information, and Technology will come to
order.
135 years ago yesterday, 40-year-old former slave George
Mason died in City Point, VA. His official death certificate is
one simple line in a ledger book so tattered by age that a
ribbon holds its fading pages together. If there are other
records about Mr. Mason's life, they are likely buried
somewhere in the millions of pages of deteriorating documents
from the former Freedmen's Bureau.
We are here today to examine H.R. 5157, the ``Freedmen's
Bureau Records Preservation Act of 2000,'' introduced by
Representatives Juanita Millender-McDonald of California and
J.C. Watts of Oklahoma. This bill requires the Archivist of the
United States to use all available technology to preserve and
catalog the records of the Freedmen's Bureau.
On March 3, 1865, the 38th Congress created the Bureau of
Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen's
Bureau. This bureau was given the authority to supervise and
manage activities relating to the newly emancipated African
Americans. Following the bureau's closure on June 30, 1872, the
records from its regional offices were sent to the National
Archives for storage where, to this day, these vital links to
history languish in their original state, due to lack of
attention and funding.
Today, we will examine the condition of these records. We
will also discuss how these records could be maintained and
preserved to help millions of Americans--now and in future
generations--better understand their heritage.
We welcome our witnesses, and look forward to their
testimony. I am glad to see my neighbor from southern
California, Juanita Millender-McDonald, and we would be glad to
listen to your testimony on this.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5060.022
STATEMENT OF HON. JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank
you for your sensitivity to this issue. Good morning to Mr.
Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I am very pleased to
come before you this morning, and I am sure to be joined by
Representative J.C. Watts, my colleague that is cosponsoring
this piece of legislation. We come to you this morning to share
the reasons why we have proposed the Freedmen's Bureau
Preservation Act of 2000. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and
Abandoned Lands, properly called the Freedmen's Bureau, was
established in the War Department by an act of this government
on March 3, 1865. This act was the culmination of several years
of efforts as the U.S. Government, embroiled in Civil War,
sought to settle the slave problem for the United States.
From 1619 to 1800, more than 660,000 African men, women,
and children were torn from their homelands in West Africa,
herded onto ships and brought to North America as slaves. While
the southern economy was flourishing from slave labor, the
country simultaneously was building a new democracy based on
the principles of liberty and individual freedom. As the
democracy debate clarified issues of government and
citizenship, grave contradictions were drawn between slavery
and our Nation's first principle of individual freedom. As
President Lincoln said, the government could not endure
permanently half slave and half free.
On July 4, 1861, President Lincoln in a speech to Congress
said that the war was ``a People's contest . . . a struggle for
maintaining in the world, that form and substance of
government, whose leading object is to elevate the condition of
men . . ..'' and this War Between the States was, among other
things, a war about the condition of the slaves.
This very body was engaged in the overwhelming challenge of
moving millions of slaves from bondage to freedom. In March
1864, the House passed a bill by a slender majority of two that
established a bureau for freed men in the War Department. The
Senate reported a substitute bill to the House too late for
action attaching the Bureau to the Treasury Department.
After the 1864 elections, the House and Senate conferred
and proposed a bureau independent of either War or Treasury. In
the political machinations between these elected
Representatives, the Senate could not agree with the House. A
new conference committee was appointed which finally in 1865
established in the War Department a Bureau of Refugees, Freed
Men and Abandoned Lands. Thus, the War Department set about the
enormous task of documenting, supervising and managing the
transition of slaves from bondage to freedom.
The Bureau deployed field offices in Alabama, Arkansas, the
District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Maryland, Delaware, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. These offices
were responsible for all relief and educational activities
relating to refugees and freed men, including issuing rations,
clothing, and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of
confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States,
border States, District of Columbia, and Indian territory. The
Bureau records that were created and maintained became the
documented history of the greatest social undertaking in this
country's history.
During this tumultuous period of transformation between
1865 and 1872, the Freedmen's Bureau recorded the movements of
slaves from community to community and State to State. For
historians and genealogists these records provide the critical
link between the Civil War and the 1870 census, the first one
to list African Americans by name. Former slaves, recognized
formerly in government records only by sex, age and color, were
named in the Bureau records as individuals in marriage,
government rations lists, lists of colored persons, labor
contracts, indentured contracts for minors, medical records,
and as victims of violence.
Many historical and genealogical associations like the
African American Historical and Genealogical Society, the
African American Research Project, the Association for the
Study of African American Life and History, the Internet-based
Afrigeneas, and annual gatherings like the family reunion have
popularized African American genealogy and historical research.
African Americans, like many other Americans, look to official
records for their ancestors. As ship manifests are the vital
link between European Americans and their European ancestors,
the Freedmen's Bureau records are the link for African
Americans to their slave and African ancestors.
The original Freedmen's Bureau records are presently
preserved at the National Archives and Records Administration
in Washington, DC. Greater access to these records is a high
priority for millions of Americans interested in Civil War and
post-Civil War history and millions of African Americans
interested in their family genealogy. There are many
historians, genealogists, and family researchers interested in
exploring the vast contents of these records.
H.R. 5157 calls on the Archivist to microfilm the
Freedmen's Bureau records, create a surname index, and put this
index on-line. Innovative imaging and indexing technologies can
make these records easily accessible to the public, including
historians, genealogists, novice genealogy enthusiasts, and
students.
In fact, the Internet has transformed genealogy research.
The research word ``genealogy'' lists 2,367,600 matches on-line
and is growing daily. I took the liberty of a quick search for
the chairman and ranking member's family names and came up with
the following results, Mr. Chairman. The search string ``Horn
Genealogy'' results in over 16,600 matches on-line and the
search string ``Turner Genealogy'' resulted in 34,900 matches.
Some major Internet efforts include: The Mormon's Family
History Center has on-line resources that serve all ethnic
groups.
The USGenWeb project consists of volunteers who provide
Internet Web sites for genealogical research in every county
and every State of the United States.
Afrigeneas is the on-line African American genealogy
research group.
JewishGen is the premier source of Jewish genealogy
worldwide.
And these are just a few. The Internet abounds with Web
sites and resources for every identity group and family name
imaginable.
As a member of the House of Representatives, descendant of
slaves and a genealogy enthusiast, I urge the subcommittee to
recommend passage of this bill to the Committee on Government
Reform. I look forward to H.R. 5157 passing the House and
Senate and becoming law so this period in our history can
become known even further to the American citizens interested
in our past.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. We thank you for that very good overview. I think
you have time to sit with the panel this morning.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Yes.
Mr. Horn. We are delighted to have you. There is unanimous
consent.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5060.001
Mr. Horn. I have one question. The Archives has a pilot
project with a school, the University of Florida, to preserve
and index a few of the Freedmen's Bureau records. That is one
possibility of sub possibilities. The other is the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is part
of the Archives and makes grants.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Right.
Mr. Horn. What do you feel would be the best approach from
the research you've done on this? Would it go directly to the
Archives? Would it go to a private sector, public sector pilot
project, as apparently the University of Florida is, or work
through the National Historical Publications and Records
Commission?
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you for that question. As I
have pondered this, I would like to see extended pilot programs
in a lot of the HBCUs, or at least some of them where the
States that I have listed have, I guess, the wherewithal to
provide this pilot program. And given that there are States
that currently have access to this, we should extend those
pilot programs. I cannot but think of the history in the years
that I talked with my grandmother and others and they said if
you don't know your history, you are damned to repeat it, and
if you don't know where you have come from you don't know where
you are going, and I think our younger generation need to get
some insight as to the historical perspective that these
records can afford.
Mr. Horn. You are absolutely right on that. I go into 50 to
100 classrooms a year and I am a little disappointed sometimes
about the lack of knowledge of history of the United States.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Absolutely.
Mr. Horn. We are glad that you will stay with us. Mr.
Kanjorski has joined us as the ranking member, and we will call
up panel two. President Swygert of Howard University is
accompanied by Dr. Thomas C. Battle, the Director of the Howard
University Mooreland-Spingarn Research Center and Dr. Elizabeth
Clarke Lewis, Director of the Public History Project, Howard
University. We have a rule in the committees of Government
Reform that we swear all witnesses except Members of Congress.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that three of you have
affirmed. We will begin with President Swygert. We are
delighted to have you here. You run a very distinguished
university.
STATEMENTS OF H. PATRICK SWYGERT, PRESIDENT, HOWARD UNIVERSITY,
ACCOMPANIED BY DR. THOMAS C. BATTLE, DIRECTOR, THE HOWARD
UNIVERSITY MOORELAND-SPINGARN RESEARCH CENTER; AND DR.
ELIZABETH CLARKE LEWIS, DIRECTOR OF THE PUBLIC HISTORY PROJECT,
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Mr. Swygert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity
to testify on behalf of this incredibly important piece of
legislation. Mr. Chairman, as you noted, I am accompanied today
by Dr. Elizabeth Clarke Lewis and Dr. Thomas Battle, who is
director of the Mooreland-Spingarn Research Center, the largest
collection of African American materials outside of the Library
of Congress. I am also accompanied by Ms. Donna Brock, who is
the assistant vice president of University Communications.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to
especially acknowledge and thank the gentleman to your left,
Mr. Russell George, who is a great son of Howard University. We
very much appreciate his enthusiasm for this piece of important
legislation and his alma mater.
Mr. Horn. We appreciate that. We keep Russell George very
busy. You have taught him how to think well and how to get
moving. When this came up, we didn't have to take 2 seconds to
know this is what we wanted to do.
Mr. Swygert. Thank you very much.
If I may, I would like to extend on behalf of the entire
Howard University family our special thanks to Representative
Juanita Millender-McDonald, and our thanks as well to
Representative J.C. Watts. Congressman Watts has been a
frequent visitor to our campus. We very much appreciate his
initiative as well.
Mr. Chairman, when I was invited to appear here today, I
felt privileged to know that I would be a key spokesperson on
behalf of the University's student body, alumni, faculty, and
extended family on an issue that deeply touches the hearts of
all of us, as well as the hearts of those generations of
individuals whose lives have been so significantly impacted by
the Freedmen's Bureau. Indeed, its historical and emotional
aspects are significant.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, in 1866, Howard University was
named after General Oliver Otis Howard, who was the
Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Since its inception,
Howard University's historical relationship with the U.S.
Congress has traversed 134 years; and we continue to enjoy this
relationship, a relationship that began and grew out of the
Freedmen's Bureau. So, in some larger sense, Mr. Chairman, you
are seeing a product, live and in person, of the continuing and
enduring legacy of the Freedmen's Bureau itself.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to accomplish three things. I
would like to first speak to the immediacy, the impact of the
records themselves as it relates to the African American
community and its definition of self. Second, as you have
already heard and will continue to hear as this continues,
these are primary documents that are irreplaceable.
Third, Mr. Chairman, I am here to assure you that African
Americans and all Americans celebrate and cheer this effort. As
to the definition of self and as to the definition of people,
as the Congresswoman has already indicated, if you don't know
where you've come from, you certainly will not be able to
figure out where you are headed. These documents, Mr. Chairman,
help with that issue and more. They give proof positive of the
vitality, of the energy, of the hopes, and prayers, and
aspirations of people who have recently been enslaved. They
continue to speak with relevance and passion to issues of
today.
It is, therefore, a matter of both great emotional concern
to us, historical importance and, most importantly perhaps as
well, Mr. Chairman, they confirm and reaffirm that persons who
were only recently freed were persons who were freed and
continued to maintain a whole human spirit.
The second issue I would like to share with you, Mr.
Chairman, is based upon my experience as a Howard University
history student. Like Mr. George, I too am a graduate of Howard
University, and an alumnus of the undergraduate school and the
School of Law. It was my privilege to be a history major at
Howard University, and in that capacity we were taught a number
of principles. A number of principles were shared with us.
One of the first principles of course was to distinguish
secondary from primary sources. And primary sources, as you
know, Mr. Chairman, tend to be closer to the historical truth
than not. When one surveys the documents that are found within
the collection known as the Freedmen's Bureau Collection, one
sees primary sources in the form of letters and testimonials
and first person narratives that ring true. They rang true more
than 100 years ago and they continue to ring true today. These
documents are irreplaceable. But, there is an urgency, Mr.
Chairman, an urgency that we get about the very serious
business of preservation of these documents.
Mr. Chairman, I said a moment ago that the African American
community, and indeed all Americans, will celebrate and are
cheering this effort. I mean that in all sincerity. This is
about African American history and American history. I think
sometimes, Mr. Chairman, our focus is too narrow and our
definition too narrow as well. This is American history. It is
a history that we can all look back upon and celebrate because
it tells us where we have been as a people, as a nation, and
where we have come from, and we have come a mighty long way. I
think there is cause to celebrate and I think it will be
celebrated and cheered by us all.
Before I conclude my formal remarks, and I have submitted
my remarks for the record, I would like to speak to one issue
in particular in terms of the way and the manner in which the
records continue to be maintained and handled. The records have
been safeguarded by the National Archives and Records
Administration and generally made available to the American
people. However, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that people who
want access to these records encounter undue difficulties in
getting to the information that they seek. The records are too
complex if one seeks to identify names and locations of people.
The guides for accessing the levels of records and the variety
of information embedded in the records need improvement to
become more user friendly.
The Congresswoman spoke to this issue in the context of the
Internet. I see three areas of improvement. First, put all
available inventories on-line in the NARA Web site. Currently
there are four inventories that describe these records, an
inventory for the headquarters of Washington and three volumes
for the field offices which cover the former Confederate and
border States. I have been informed that the latter three
volumes can only be found with the main NARA office in
Washington, DC, although some efforts have been made to send
them to the regional archives offices.
Second, the microfilming needs to be continued with a
selective process in place. Currently records that pertain to
education for some States and records of the assistant
commissioner for a few States are microfilmed. I have been
informed that the Freedmen's Bureau records are voluminous, and
some of the more bureaucratic records may not need
microfilming. However, these records which contain information
on people and events should receive high priority.
Last, there needs to be a comprehensive name and subject
index for the entire record group. There are many small indices
that pertain to individual record series, and these are
helpful. For example, in the headquarters records of
Washington, DC, there are several indices and registers of
letters, but in the field offices there are too few indices to
assist people in their research process. Reports often come
with no indices, and the volume of records precludes any
systematic searches. I believe comprehensive index systems for
each State where Bureau officials operate can provide
directions for individuals to search names and subject.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I speak with enthusiasm for this
legislation. I celebrate with you. I applaud you and your
colleagues for this initiative, and if I may respond in part to
the last question posed to the Congresswoman, I think the HBCU
community has the capacity today, certainly Howard University
has the capacity to participate in appropriate pilot programs
with appropriate oversight and assessment, and we would be
prepared to do so with enthusiasm.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Swygert follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We thank you, and I might add when I introduce
you, your full statement is put in the record. The staff and
we, when we get back to town, we read them all prior to the--in
this day and age prior to the hearing starting, and we have
fine testimony from all of you on such short notice. Next is
Dr. Thomas C. Battle.
Mr. Battle. Mr. Chairman, I don't have any prepared
records, but I would like to speak to the importance of
preserving primary documents. These are the kinds of materials
which are essential to research of all kinds. The Nation has
recently undertaken legislation to celebrate, to document, and
to preserve those issues related to the Underground Railroad.
That was a very important effort.
I would think that looking at the transition into freedom,
sort of a domestic Marshal Plan, which the Freedmen's Bureau
was about, that preserving these records and offering them for
research to scholars is vitally important to understanding all
of the American experience. The Civil War continues to be a
subject of very major interest throughout our Nation. And as we
have looked at the Underground Railroad and looked at the Civil
War, it is important for us to preserve these records that are
important to the reconstruction of our Nation, and I would urge
in continuing the efforts of the National Archives that we
provide whatever support is necessary to ensure that these
records are preserved for the future.
Mr. Horn. What has been your experience with various
libraries in the States, with the National Archives, etc? How
do you feel about where the possibility should be to use these?
It is probably going to be a mix of all sorts of things.
Mr. Battle. It is going to be a mix. The interest in this
research and genealogy is a nationwide interest. Certainly
there is detrimental effect when scholars have to travel to a
sole source when the opportunity exists to distribute them to a
wider audience. I think we could benefit from scholarship
pursued in that manner. Certainly a centralized location is
beneficial, but the distribution of materials is what we should
be about today.
Mr. Horn. I think with the Internet they are right at our
fingertips, if we can get it into a data form that any citizen
could get in their home or library, or even their high school
libraries, would be important. And, of course, we do have
Federal depositories, as we all know, in almost every
congressional district in the land and that would be another
possibility to put it in. Sometimes even though they are
Federal depositories, they are under city or county or State
and some of them are much better put to use than some of the
others. So, if we want to have this, I think the Internet is
one solution; but we have to get to the raw data before they
expire. When I heard what our staff found, and some of the
records really were pitiful, we need to deal with that.
So, I thank you, Dr. Battle, for your insight. We now go to
the next witness, Elizabeth Clarke Lewis, Director of the
Public History Project at Howard University.
Ms. Lewis. Good morning. Very briefly, I would like to say
we thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. In
addition, I would like to remind all of us as a historian that
there is a world of history to be discovered in these records.
This was a moment in time in which people were walking out of
slavery and into new opportunities, and their voices moved from
the margins to the center in these records, and it is critical
for us to put into place the apparatus, for us to not only hear
these voices but understand the words that they were saying.
I would like to add that this was a time when people were
also walking into history, that the Federal Government was
interceding to help former slaves as well as non-former slaves
acquire land and move forward and modernize the Nation.
We understand without question that the textures of the
interior worlds of people are very important. These records
allow us to create linkages between those internal worlds and
the external developments and movements of the larger world.
These records are significant because they create without
question a strong foundation for us to understand families,
local history, regional changes, as well as the apparatus of a
Nation put into place for lands that were given to individuals
of non-African descent, free lands that were made available to
them as refugees also.
As has been stated, these records truly are American
history and they reflect the history of this country in a
manner that is very, very unusual and important. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much.
We have a few questions for this panel before we move to
the third panel, and I take it by my previous question to you,
Dr. Swygert, that Howard University would be interested in
participating in----
Mr. Swygert. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if I may, in
terms of capacity to participate in a pilot program, we have
invested a significant amount of resources in the past several
years to build up our IT, or information technology
infrastructure, both in terms of hardware, software, wiring the
campus, and in terms of recruitment and retention of both
faculty and staff who can manage the technology.
We think we are suited for this purpose for three relevant
reasons. The first is that when you look at Howard University,
as I said in my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, you are
literally viewing the progeny of the Freedmen's Bureau itself.
We think, to the extent that there should be some consideration
given in terms of the historical relationship, that pertains.
Second, we have many, many decades of management of very,
very sensitive, fragile, irreplaceable documents in the form of
the Mooreland-Spingarn collection that Dr. Battle heads at the
university, and we take that charge very seriously.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we are a research university. Howard
University, under the old Carnegie classification system, was
known as a research 1 university. In the new Carnegie
classification system, we are known as a doctoral intensive
university, which is the highest ranking for these purposes
that a university might obtain. We have the doctoral programs,
we have the faculty, the students, and the physical facilities,
and now we have the technology to participate.
Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would urge if at all possible,
that you find some way and some opportunity to further
encourage us to pursue this pilot program idea initiative. We
very much appreciate that.
Mr. Horn. Well, I think, as you heard me ask the author of
the legislation, you have got choices here of the archives
itself, the archives pilot projects, and here we have the
example of the University of Florida, which had a grant to
preserve and index a few of the Freedmen's Bureau records, but
it isn't a very total approach. Then of course, the money that
goes to, and we have expanded that hopefully with the
Appropriation Committees, is the National Historical Public
Records Commission, which has worked on this type of pilot
throughout the United States in the preservation of records.
I am just fishing for what is out there and what are the
possibilities when you write legislation so that we don't
exclude or overly include. That is what I am looking at.
I might ask you, Dr. Battle, what type of records are in
the Spingarn collection?
Mr. Battle. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to
share this with you. We were founded in 1914. We celebrate more
than 85 years of service in documenting Black history and
culture. We consider ourselves the largest and most
comprehensive repository of this kind in the world. We are
generally considered the library of last resort. Roughly that
means when you can't find it at the Library of Congress, you
come to us. We are one of the largest manuscript archivals of
this kind.
We tend not to enumerate the quantities in the collection,
but our library collections are well over 200,000 volumes,
there are well over 100,000 images in our photographic
collections, our manuscript and archival collections would
extend some 30 miles or so if we were to try to articulate
materials in that way. We are one of the most comprehensive
centers of documenting all aspects of the Black experience in
this Nation. We sometimes say that we predate Black History
Month and the organization that founded it. Howard University
has collected such historical information since the first days
of its existence. Our library collection is based upon the
Louis Tachnach slavery collection, which documents the
experiences of African people during that turbulent period in
our history.
We, in addition to the range of resources that we have, you
may also be interested in knowing that for the last year, in
our second year of publication of what we call HUarchives.net,
this is undertaken to provide us with the opportunity to share
in a broader fashion the vast resources of Mooreland-Spingarn
Research Center. We have done so while trying to address the
needs not simply of university level and scholars, but students
and teachers in the K-through-12 range as well. We think that
we are very qualified in the field that we endeavor in terms of
preservation of Black history.
Mr. Swygert. HUarchives.net is a pilot, Mr. Chairman, if
you will, that is funded in part by MCI WorldCom, and it is a
reflection of that partnership between private sector and a
research university to accomplish a public good, and we are
very proud of that relationship and the work that has been done
over the past year or so.
Second, Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully request an
opportunity to supplement my written testimony with a written
response to your inquiry regarding ways and means of
effectuating the purposes of the legislation.
Mr. Horn. Without objection, that will be put at this point
in the hearing record.
Mr. Swygert. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Horn. You are quite welcome. Remind me who Spingarn
was?
Mr. Battle. He was an attorney, a bibliophile. It was his
life's passion, and he set out in a worldwide search to find
and to collect every volume written by a person of African
descent. To the extent that he was successful, his collection
is one of the major collections of such rarities that is in
existence. Jesse Mooreland was a graduate and alumnus of Howard
whose collection was donated in 1914 with the intention that
Howard University would be the foundation of the study of Black
life, and history, and culture in the United States, throughout
the Americas and throughout the African diaspore, including
Africa itself.
Mr. Swygert. Mr. Chairman, just as another point regarding
the Mooreland-Spingarn collection, a significant amount of the
research that preceded the Steven Spielberg ``Amistad'' story
took place at the Mooreland-Spingarn collection. So, when Dr.
Battle speaks of documentation and records, he speaks with real
authority among his peers and scholars. It is a great, great
respository that is part of the definition of Howard
University.
I am often asked, Mr. Chairman, how do you define the
university? Well, you begin in two places. Your faculty and
your library. We have a great faculty and a great library and a
great collection at Mooreland-Spingarn.
Mr. Horn. What is that Website address?
Mr. Swygert. It is www.howarduniversity.edu for the
university.
Mr. Battle. And Mooreland-Spingarn would simply precede
Howard University.
Mr. Horn. I want to make sure.
Mr. Battle. It is HUarchives.net, that is one word,
although separation in spacing, dot Howard.edu.
Mr. Horn. Do you have any questions?
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to
thank the president of Howard University and these other two
fine professors and persons who have come from that very
distinguished university to really give us a further insight as
to what the depth of Howard University's research department
is.
Mr. Horn. It is. It seems too natural that you would have a
pilot program of the Freedmen's Bureau records. You certainly
are located here in Washington, DC. Folks come to your
university to get that kind of research, and to have this type
of historical perspective and material is just natural. I would
like to pitch for a pilot program to be there.
I agree with you, Doctor, that your historical background,
given that General Howard himself, who the university is named
after, and the whole notion of Dr. Battle and his research
program, Dr. Lewis, I guess I feel so overwhelmed this morning
to know that we have such great experts out there who are
willing to help us further this whole project of getting this
information out to our younger kids, and I call them kids
because I am so much older, but the folks in colleges and
universities across this Nation. I would simply say thank you
for your input. I have noted those things of importance that
you have said today.
Dr. Swygert, I want to ask, on your campus do you have
genealogy research groups or student groups that would be
interested in a such a pilot program?
Mr. Swygert. Oh, yes. Many, both State-related groups at
Howard University. We have a history of students, undergraduate
and graduate who identify by State, so there is a Georgia
society on campus, there is a Texas society on campus, a
Florida society and our largest--California is our largest. We
also, of course, have faculty and staff who, in addition to Dr.
Battle, both the department of history and elsewhere have
demonstrated expertise, and I think would welcome this with
enthusiasm. At Howard University it is personal. This is a
definition of the very institution that I am privileged to
represent. So, to say that there would be enthusiasm on our
campus would be a gross understatement. There would be a
tremendous celebration.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. I can certainly attest to that. Dr.
Swygert, if you would help me to get this word across to other
presidents and to carry this throughout the Nation, that indeed
we have something that is important to America and to African
Americans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. We thank you for all of the work that
you have put into this. Did any of you have a chance to look
through the actual draft, H.R. 5157, and do you have any
suggestions to make to that because we are going to move this
very rapidly?
Mr. Swygert. We have no suggestions this morning, but we
will be working up some comments, Mr. Chairman, in addition to
the supplement that I mentioned a moment ago. But the outline
of the legislation is right on target and well drafted and very
well focused.
Mr. Horn. Could you draft it by the end of the day?
Mr. Swygert. We will have something for you----
Mr. Horn. On the bill?
Mr. Swygert. Absolutely.
Mr. Horn. We will move this tomorrow morning and hopefully
the full committee and move it to the floor.
Mr. Swygert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. The only other one that I have moved this fast
was when I was trying to save the National Academy of Sciences.
Mr. Swygert. Thank you. I feel privileged to have the
opportunity to speak before you today.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. We now will go to the third
panel. The third panel is Reginald Washington, African American
genealogy subject area specialist, National Archives and
Records Administration, Mr. Michael Kurtz, Assistant Archivist
of the United States for Records Services, National Archives
and Records Administration; Professor Tony Burroughs, adjunct
professor of genealogy Chicago State University, and Henry
Wiencek, resident fellow, Virginia foundation for the
humanities. If you will stand to be sworn.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. We will start with Reginald Washington.
STATEMENTS OF REGINALD WASHINGTON, AFRICAN AMERICAN GENEALOGY
SUBJECT AREA SPECIALIST, NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS
ADMINISTRATION; MICHAEL KURTZ, ASSISTANT ARCHIVIST OF THE
UNITED STATES FOR RECORDS SERVICES, NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND
RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; PROFESSOR TONY BURROUGHS, ADJUNCT
PROFESSOR OF GENEALOGY, CHICAGO STATE UNIVERSITY; AND HENRY
WIENCEK, RESIDENT FELLOW, VIRGINIA FOUNDATION FOR THE
HUMANITIES
Mr. Washington. I would like to begin, Mr. Chairman, by
thanking you for inviting me this morning to testify on the
need to preserve and increase the accessibility of the records
of Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. As the
subject area expert in African American genealogy for the
Office of Records Services, Washington, DC, I fully recognize
the importance of the Bureau's records, and I appreciate the
committee's interest in them. I am delighted to have the
opportunity to participate in the hearings today.
The records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, are
among the most important primary resources for the study of the
African American experience during slavery and freedom. The
Freedmen's Bureau records document the African American
community's struggle for freedom and equality, and provide
insight into the Federal Government's policies toward the
nearly 4 million Blacks released from bondage at the close of
the American Civil War.
While a major part of the Bureau's early activities include
the supervision of abandoned and confiscated property, its
mission was to provide relief and to help freedmen to become
self sufficient. To accomplish these goals, the Bureau issued
rations and clothing, operated hospitals and refugee camps and
supervised labor contracts between planters and freedmen. The
Bureau also managed apprenticeship disputes and complaints,
assisted benevolent societies, and established schools, helped
legalize marriages, and provided transportation to refugees and
freedmen who were attempting to reunite with family or relocate
to other parts of the country. As Congress extended the life of
the Bureau, it added other duties, such as assisting Black
soldiers and their heirs in obtaining back pay, bounty
payments, and pensions. In carrying out all of these
activities, the Bureau collected information about freedmen and
their families. I've brought along copies of several examples
of Bureau documents that illustrate the types of information
collected.
Mr. Horn. We would certainly like you to file them with the
record. Go ahead and make a summary and put the rounder part of
it in the record at this point.
Mr. Washington. The documents that I brought today, one is
certainly a marriage certificate. I brought along a labor
contract agreement and also a marriage register and one other
document I brought today was a plantation census.
Mr. Chairman, for decades, historians, social scientists,
and other scholars have used Freedmen's Bureau records to study
social and economic conditions and the Federal Government's
involvement in education in the Black community during
reconstruction. In recent years, however, a growing number of
African American genealogists and family historians have
discovered the value of Freedmen's Bureau records for family
research and have begun wading through them in search of
information about ancestors and local history. Some collected
records of the Bureau have been microfilmed, but, in general
these do not include many records of the local field offices
where most individual freedmen came in contact with the Bureau.
Many researchers who attempt to use the field office records
become frustrated when they discover that they must travel to
Washington to use them. Their frustration continues when they
find that the records are voluminous and lack useful name
indexes.
Fortunately, we have been successful in forming some
partnerships that are enabling us to address the frustrations
of users of the Freedmen's Bureau field office records. One of
these partnerships involves the special collections library of
the University of Florida; and we are using it as a pilot to
confirm requirements for processing records prior to filming
and to examine the feasibility of producing an automated name
index. The project involves the filming of some 41 series of
records of the Florida field office of the Freedmen's Bureau,
totaling more than 12,000 images.
To test the indexing possibilities, NARA has developed a
data base to collect index entries and is training members of
its volunteer Civil War Conservation Corps to populate the data
base by extracting names from the Florida series that are most
likely to yield information about individual freedom. The
University of Florida is funding the filming and NARA
volunteers are doing the indexing, but any number of other
divisions of labor are possible, and NARA also envisions
partnerships where funds for filming originate with the
government and private partners contribute indexing support.
This concludes my prepared statement, Mr. Chairman. If you
or other members of the subcommittee have any questions, I
would be happy to address them.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Washington follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Our next witness is Michael J. Kurtz.
Mr. Kurtz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is good to be back
with this committee.
Among other things, one of my most important jobs is that I
am responsible for the custody and use of the Freedmen's Bureau
records that my colleague Mr. Washington has just described.
When I was a young archivist, one of my first projects was
working with Freedmen's Bureau records, so this brings me back
around to the beginning.
On behalf of the National Archives, I want to thank
Congresswoman Millender-McDonald, and Congressman Watts for
introducing the Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act of 2000. It
is very consistent with the mission and goals of the National
Archives, and we support the bill very enthusiastically. We
always welcome any congressional interest to preserve and make
available archival records, particularly these valuable records
which Mr. Washington, President Swygert and others have
described so well today.
We have the records in a stable environment, but with
increasing use, their fragile condition really requires the
steps that are called for in this bill. We have prepared--in
preparation for this effort, we have identified approximately
1.3 million pages of material that need to be microfilmed. It
would cost approximately $1.5 million. All of this of course is
beyond the current budget and resource----
Mr. Horn. I want to be very clear. Are those records that
you already have or is that an estimate of the records out
there in the field?
Mr. Kurtz. These are all Freedmen's Bureau records which
have been described at the State and county levels which have
the most important genealogical name information. It covers all
of that for all 11 states.
Mr. Horn. And you say basically that boils down to 1\1/2\
million items?
Mr. Kurtz. 1.3 million pages, $1.5 million.
Mr. Horn. OK.
Mr. Kurtz. We prepared all of this earlier this summer when
we were working with Congresswoman Millender-McDonald in
preparation for this effort.
A couple of points raised by Dr. Swygert, which I think are
very important. The finding aids, we are in the process of
putting them up on the NARA Web, and that should be completed
soon.
Mr. Horn. What do you mean by ``narrow Web''?
Mr. Kurtz. Our Web site. It is the NARA, the National
Archives Website.
Also we are very pleased to hear from Dr. Swygert of the
interest of Howard University in performing as a potential
partner. We think that for the indexing part of this process,
it is critical to have partners. As you noted, Mr. Chairman,
the NHPRC does do grants. There was a grant made to the Florida
State Historical Society which regranted to the University of
Florida for the project that we are now engaged in with them
for this pilot project. That certainly is one possible way to
go.
The pilot project is critical because we really need to
understand what standards we need to have, what kind of time
and resource constraints. So, forming these pilot projects with
the various universities, particularly Howard University, would
be a very important way to go. I would also like to note in
closing that we will be working very closely with your staff
today on some changes in the bill with regards to funding, I
think clarifying the authorization for funding and also putting
in--suggesting language to make it clear about the partnerships
and the various ways to go about doing that for the indexing
and getting the information on the Internet.
Mr. Horn. Let me pursue that point. We have the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission. Do you think
this project here and the $1.5 million in terms of how we would
take those partnership suggestions around the country, would
that be by a new unit in the archives or would it be left to
the National Historical Publications and Records Commission?
Mr. Kurtz. The $1.5 million is required for the
microfilming. That is the first step that has to happen. It is
the purpose of the pilot project with Florida to come up with
what the standards and the costs would be to do name indexing,
and from gathering that data, it would enable us to begin
working with various university partners in this effort. So, at
this point, I don't have a dollar estimate.
Mr. Horn. When will Florida complete the pilot so we can
have these figures in a fiscal sense?
Mr. Kurtz. I need to check on that for you. We are ready to
begin filming it, and we have developed the data base that we
need for the indexing pilot. I need to get the information when
that part will be completed.
Mr. Horn. When did that pilot start?
Mr. Kurtz. Our Civil War Conservation Corps that Regie
Washington mentioned has completed all of the preparation for
the microfilming, so the microfilming is about to begin any day
now. That should take about 60 days or so to do the
microfilming. We have to get some information for you on
exactly when the indexing part of this will be completed, and
we will do so.
Mr. Horn. I want to put in the record at this point some of
the typical documents that our staff and staff director have
from these records. One here is rules on the actual slave at
the time and another one is the Amnesty Oath, it would be
Mississippi residence, but you can see that in the records. And
then from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands,
the marriage certificate, and then it tells man and wife and
the name children are a legitimate issue of. And then we have a
list of the burials for the month of September 1865.
This reminded me, when I started looking at those
documents, of the wonderful project that came out of your
legislative section of the Archives on Thomas Jefferson where
the documents look exactly like it was in Jefferson's day, and
also women's suffrage. Now, those are the only two I know of
like that. Are there others?
Mr. Kurtz. They are working on one on a history of Congress
project. That is our third major one.
Mr. Horn. Good. But it is really wonderful when children in
school--elementary, intermediate, high school, universities,
colleges, whatever--when you see these documents, the history
comes home to you.
Mr. Kurtz. I will be sure to pass that on to the Archivist,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. So these will be put in the record. They can do
that at the Government Printing Office. We have a little
trouble of what you can do down there or what you can't, so I
think those can be easily duplicated in our hearing.
Mr. Kurtz. Just one other point, to pick up on what was
previously said. As these records are microfilmed and so forth,
we intend to put them in our regional archives. We intend to, I
think, followup your idea about the depository library. Also,
we have a microfilm rental program. All of this would be in
addition to eventually what gets indexed and put on the
Internet, other sources of access.
I would like to close, Mr. Chairman, by saying that I
believe this will be the final time that, due to the chairman's
term limits provisions, that we will have the opportunity to
testify before you. We want to thank you for your great help
and leadership with the National Archives.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much. We have enjoyed
working with you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kurtz follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Our next presenter is Professor Tony Burroughs,
adjunct professor of genealogy, Chicago State University.
Mr. Burroughs. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman McDonald and
members of the committee, thank you very, very much for the
invitation to say a few words in support of H.R. 5157, the
Freedmen's Bureau Record Preservation Act of 2000. I am very
honored to be here today.
According to surveys conducted this year by Maritz
Marketing, 60 percent of all Americans over the age of 18 are
interested in doing genealogical research. Other surveys
indicate that genealogy is one of the most popular interests
and activities on the Internet. These surveys are consistent
with numbers reported by the National Archives indicating that
85 percent of all users of the Archives are researching their
family history. Being the only invited full-time, professional
genealogist on this witness panel today, I represent those 85
percent of researchers using the National Archives as well as
60 percent of all Americans.
Specifically for African Americans, I have just published
this book, Black Roots, a Beginners Guide to Tracing the
African American Family Tree, which will be Simon & Schusters'
lead book in Black History Month, to prepare beginners to get
more fundamental background in doing their family history.
I have delivered dozens of lectures at national conferences
and local workshops around the United States and Canada in the
last 10 years that either instruct researchers on how to use
Freedmen's Bureau records or lectures that include Freedmen's
Bureau records among other records that I discuss.
Seeing the excitement on genealogists' faces once they
learn of these rare records and then their almost immediate
frustration when they learn that most have not been microfilmed
and they have to travel to Washington to view them is like
watching the old commercials on the Wide World of Sports
describing ``the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,''
all in a matter of seconds.
Because of the age, the quality and the quantity of these
records, they are extremely valuable to both African American
and also White genealogists. I have devoted 25 percent of
instructional text in this book, the African American
Genealogical Sourcebook, to researching records from the
Freedmen's Bureau so people know what to do before they come to
Washington.
I explain 14 different record series with genealogical and
historical value, many of which have already been mentioned,
but including apprenticeship records; census lists and
registers; marriage records, among the most valuable because
they often contain the only record of a slave marriage and
sometimes includes the names of children; labor contracts;
transportation records; education records, which chronicle the
beginning of Black colleges; supervision of 850,000 acres of
abandoned land, including leases, sales, and restorations; food
rations; and hospital records, which are extremely valuable
because they often contain the only record of an ancestor's
death--I have seen hundreds of deaths in hospital records due
to contagious diseases, epidemics and poor sanitary conditions;
complaints, outrages and murders; and the Freedmen's Bureau
supervised trials. There was a tremendous amount of
correspondence; there are Civil War Veteran Claims; and a few
miscellaneous records, including births, deaths, and cemetery
records.
Almost all of these records contain names of both African
Americans as well as White Americans, many being Bureau agents,
teachers, doctors, chaplains, ministers, government employees,
laborers, former slave owners, refugees from the Civil War, the
sick and the indigent, landowners and Civil War veterans. In
addition to the 15 States covered by the Bureau's services,
some left home from other States to work for the Bureau, or
attend one of the schools. Others received Bureau assistance to
return to home and to work outside of Bureau-controlled States,
so it covers more than the 15 areas that the Bureau controlled.
The most challenging problem facing African American
genealogists is identifying the name of the former slave owner,
vital to extend genealogical research prior to 1865. My own
unpublished research shows that, out of over 5,000 cases, only
15 percent of former slaves used the name of the last slave
owner. Therefore, I instruct researchers to search for records
where the former slave indicates the name of his or her former
slave owner. Some of the best sources are records from the
Freedmen's Bureau that were created during this transition from
slavery to freedom.
In addition to discovering their ancestors, some
genealogists have made larger contributions to society. Belzora
Cheatham, president of the African American Genealogical and
Historical Society of Chicago, located letters written to the
Freedmen's Bureau in 1868 which assisted her in getting the
first State historical marker dedicated to African Americans in
Cass County, TX. The unveiling of her historical marker for
Whittaker Memorial Cemetery was featured on the CBS Evening
News with Dan Rather's Eye on America in 1996.
Some of the Bureau records are now 135 years old and in
poor condition. In addition to deteriorating paper, ink is
fading from some of the pages and will undoubtedly be a
challenge to microfilm.
Of the few records of the Freedmen's Bureau that have been
microfilmed, 75 percent were microfilmed prior to the 1977
airing of the television miniseries ``Roots'' by Alex Haley,
which resulted in an explosion of Americans researching their
family history. Records from the Bureau that were microfilmed
pertained mainly to reports, correspondence, and education
items related to the history of the Bureau and to education of
African Americans, not to genealogy.
Professor Ira Berlin and his Freedom and Southern Society
Project at the University of Maryland was able to select 40,000
documents from the National Archives to transcribe and publish,
including some from the Freedmen's Bureau. But he was able to
do this because he was only a Metro ride away from the
documents. What about those thousands of us that live hundreds
and thousands of miles away from Washington, DC? If these
records are microfilmed, thousands of genealogists will not
only have access to the materials, they can also begin to
transcribe records that hold missing puzzles to their
ancestors' lives, while other genealogists can begin new
studies that will contribute to the humanities.
I have been at the National Archives on many occasions when
researchers located their ancestors. The joy and exultation
they exhibit is sometimes overwhelming. It is very exciting for
me to share in their excitement. It is what keeps me teaching
over the years.
Records from the Freedmen's Bureau are unique because they
are not only used by academic scholars, they are used by
average Americans searching for their roots. The records
include African Americans, White Americans, poor Americans,
rich Americans--in fact, all Americans. Descendants of people
named in the records probably live now in all 50 States.
It was the Congress of the United States that created the
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands in 1865. Now,
135 years later, we are once again relying on you, the Congress
of the United States, to preserve the Bureau's records and its
legacy.
I would like to close with two points, one, that I have
been working with archivists from the United States in Chicago,
Washington, Philadelphia, and Kansas City, and I must say that
they do an excellent job, and they are some of the finest civil
servants that I have seen. However, they are underutilized,
they need more resources to do the job they are doing.
I would also like to say that I have worked with the effort
to index the U.S. Colored Troops Project that is now on the
Internet that was championed by the National Park Service as
well as the Federation of Genealogical Societies where we
garnered thousands of genealogists around the country to index
these records and make them available to the Internet, and I am
willing to offer that service again if it is needed by the
committee. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That is very fascinating testimony;
and we appreciate you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burroughs follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Let me ask you, you have heard some of the
choices of the pilot projects, the Florida project, do it with
the Archives, etc. Do you have any advice for us on that of how
this, given the immensity of records in parts of the Nation and
how we get microfilm equipment--I have just finished going
through about 40 years of a newspaper, and one's eyes do get
tired after a while. Then the problem is, when you have
delicate, fragile records, that they make sure that they get a
good picture of it somehow; and usually the thing is going like
this for some archival documents, even after they are on
microfilm. They just didn't focus it. They were just rushing
through. So what can you tell us about that?
Mr. Burroughs. I agree with all of the things that have
been previously mentioned. I think that, historically, Black
colleges are an excellent source to try to utilize some of
this. I would not leave out the Historical Records Preservation
Committee and the efforts that they have done. I think they
have done a fine job with a lot of the documentary history
projects they have done, particularly the one by the Freedom
and Southern Society Project, so I would not overlook that in
terms of actually transcribing some of the records, in addition
to making name indexes. So I don't know if there is time to
look into that, but there is a precedent that is set by that,
so I would not overlook that. Again, there are thousands and
thousands of genealogists around the country that would be very
willing to help in this effort.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. Do you have a question for this
witness, and then we will go to----
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Burroughs, you certainly have
given some very interesting and informative information and
testimony on your background and how intense you have been in
trying to preserve and to recover I suppose more information.
It is interesting to know that 60 percent of Americans over the
age of 18 are interested in genealogy. It is just amazing. You
tend to think you might be one of those who are in just a
little hole alone, as I thought I was, just really being
interested in this, but it is great to know this as well. I
would be interested to know how many of those 60 percent are
African Americans, if that is a breakdown that we can get.
Mr. Burroughs. I was afraid that question was going to come
up. I have not seen statistics on that, and the Maritz
Marketing that compiled those statistics, I don't know if they
have racial breakdowns of those. I do know that I have seen a
growing interest in the numbers of African Americans doing
genealogy. I have been tracking, on an informal basis of the
numbers of African American genealogical societies that have
been growing around the country, and now there are more than 50
genealogical societies spread out throughout the United States,
and those numbers are growing.
The 60 percent of all Americans, that number is up from 5
years ago when it was 45 percent of all Americans. So I have
talked with representatives from the National Archives, and
they do not compile statistics by race either, but they have
indicated to me that the numbers of African Americans are
growing just like everybody else is growing.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. That is interesting, given the fact
that we see more and more in our communities at family reunions
and, in doing so, the family tends to want to now know from
whence they have come and whether or not Alabama is really the
first, I guess, point of origin of the family or wherever--
outside of, of course, Africa. But they want to know whether
they have come from the southern part of Africa, the west part
or whatever, and it is important that we continue to move the
Bureau of Records whereby one can begin to do that.
I did that when I had to speak in front of my family
reunions, and I went through the Mormon's records to find that
and found that we really--the name Millender, the name
McDonald, and we recognize those names and where they have come
from, but you just really tend to go as far back. And it went
back to Africa and then down to Portugal. So, it is amazing how
I came all the way up through all of that area in trying to
find, really, my roots. So it was quite interesting.
The other thing I wanted to ask you was----
Mr. Burroughs. Excuse me, if I could interrupt you for a
brief second to followup on the point that you are making, this
book, the African American Genealogical Sourcebook that was
published by Gale Research, was the first major publication in
15 years when it came out in 1995. After it has come out,
within the last 5 years, several commercial publishers have
come out with books on African American genealogy. So, if the
commercial publishers are interested and they are publishing
books, then obviously there is a tremendous demand and interest
there.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Well taken and well said. I would
like to get those books that you have displayed today.
Mr. Burroughs. Sure.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Did I write it correctly, the
National Archives Preservation Committee? What is the----
Mr. Burroughs. What is the correct name of the historic
preservation committee?
Mr. Horn. It is the National Historical Publications and
Records Commission.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. So that is one that comes through
our National Archives and not one that is independent of them;
am I correct? Is this an interest----
Mr. Horn. It is in cooperation with the Archives?
Mr. Kurtz. The Archivist is the chair of the Commission,
and it is administratively organized and managed by the
National Archives.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. OK, fine. I just wanted to get a
clear understanding of where they integrate.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. That leads to another question. Besides the
Freedmen's records, what are some of the other records that
might also be relevant to the emancipation of the slaves? Are
they in county courthouses somewhere buried beyond the
Freedmen's material that we obviously want? What is out there
besides that? If you take a microfilm machine around to a
county courthouse, maybe there are also some other records you
want.
Mr. Washington. Well, Mr. Chairman, in terms of Federal
records, there is also the Freedmen's Bank records that are
available at the National Archives. Freedmen's Bank was
established on the same day that the Bureau was established,
although it was established as a private institution. When the
bank failed, of course the Federal Government stepped in, the
Comptroller of the Currency and so forth, to liquidate the
assets and so forth. But the Freedmen's Bank records are also a
body of records that are useful for African American family
research.
One of the efforts of the officials of the bank was to
determine when a person opened up an account, who their family
members were. So, you find information about aunts, uncles,
fathers, brothers, sisters, and all of that information is in
there.
Again, I should point out that institution was established
in 1865, so a lot of the information you find in those bank
records are prior to the 1870 census, where all African
Americans are initially being documented by name and so forth.
So, they become extremely important records, and they work
closely with the Freedmen's Bureau, and many of the people who
are depositing money there thought they were a part of the
Freedmen's Bureau, but they are a separate body of records.
Also, I have been working a good deal on some records
called the Commission of Claims, also known as the Southern
Claims Commission. This is a commission that was established in
1871 where persons who had property taken from them by the
Union soldiers who, when they moved throughout the areas, had
an opportunity to seek compensation from this commission, from
the Federal Government. And some of these individuals who were
filing for claims were, believe it or not, former slaves and
freed Blacks. Not only that, those records, there were some
220,000 witnesses.
In many cases, when you find persons serving as witnesses
for Blacks who are filing claims, these witnesses are family
members. Also, when you find many of the Whites who made up the
majority of the people filing claims, many of the witnesses
were their former slaves. And when you ultimately go through
those documents, you are finding what these people are saying,
this person was my former slave owner. And as Tony pointed out,
one of the key efforts in doing African American genealogy is
to find out, if your ancestors were former slaves, who the
slave owner was. You need to find as much information about the
slave-owning family as you do your own family. So these kinds
of records, Federal records, provide that kind of information.
On the level of the local level, obviously, at some point,
people are going to have to do research. African Americans are
going to have to do research at these local levels, look at
wills and probate records, deed books where information was
created by the slave-owning families. And you can find this
information sometimes, where they purchased these individuals,
you might find information where slaves have been bequeathed to
family members and all sorts of documents. You might find
assessment lists in a probate record where they not only list
the furniture and the other items that are owned by these
individuals but you also find the names of the slaves they
owned and certainly the cost and other information about them.
So, certainly African American genealogical research
involves using Federal records and also these local records
that are created in the States and the county courthouses.
Mr. Horn. Well said.
Dr. Kurtz, I am curious, besides microfilm, do we now have
scanning devices that could get some of these records into a
computer base?
Mr. Kurtz. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. Always we microfilm
because that is the long-term preservation medium, but we have
been working again with building partnerships with various
parts of the private sector to get records scanned and made
available through digital imagery.
Mr. Horn. On the scanning from the microfilm then, can you
move it onto a disk that preserves it?
Mr. Kurtz. Yes, you can.
Mr. Horn. How long does the standard microfilm tape last?
Mr. Kurtz. Well, actually, the preservation medium is the
microfilm. There are really no archival preservation standards
at this point for digital imagery. They are still being
developed with the technology and the industry. So whenever we
use digital imagery and so forth in scanning and images, it is
purely for the purposes of access and accessibility. It is
really not for preservation. I am sure in the next couple of
years this will be settled and the standards will be developed,
but they don't exist right now.
Mr. Horn. Well, when we talk about 1.3 million pages and a
cost of $1.5 million for the microfilm, do we need to also
think about disks that would keep it permanent when the rest of
this is either in a vault somewhere in a cave in some States
and universities. How much really are we talking about, $3
million basically?
Mr. Kurtz. I am really not able to comment on that.
Mr. Horn. I would think so. Well, we will start with that.
We will see if we can get away with $3 million.
Mr. Kurtz. One of the things, too, I would like to
supplement a little bit about, what Regie Washington shared in
the National Archives here in Washington there are many
records, military records that have information about African
Americans, Treasury Department records. For instance, I think
it is the third auditor of the Treasury Department, you find
all of the records related to compensated emancipation here in
the District. I used those records many years ago in a
publication, and they are a rich source of information.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, let me just ask Mr.
Washington, your comments on the Freedmen's Bank records, the
Commission of Claims records and now Dr. Kurtz saying the
military Treasury records, that would be quite an integration
of records, and it would seem to me like at one time, at one
point, we need to look at integrating that and cross-
referencing that. Because if you have just one segment of these
remarkable records as in the Freedmen Bureau, we certainly need
to finish that off with all of the other records that will be a
cross-reference to and for cross-purposes, it seems to me. I
would like to perhaps have you and Mr. Washington and Mr. Kurtz
to look at the cost factor of that. Because that, to me, seems
to be the next step, not at this juncture, Mr. Chairman, but
perhaps at another one, that we can start looking at an
integration of all of those records.
Mr. Kurtz. Congresswoman, I think that you are making a
very good point, because I think what we really need to do is,
beginning with what we are planning to do at this point,
develop a strategy that kind of moves onward and outward
dealing with what is most productive and useful, identifying
what is lesser, making those cost-benefit decisions and whether
it is worth it and have a strategy that goes beyond the
Freedmen's Bureau, that has to be our first step, I think.
Mr. Horn. I would like to now move to our last presenter.
His responses will be along the line of a lot of the questions
we have already asked, but I wanted to get some of the
administrative questions into the record, and then what Mr.
Henry Wiencek has done is really quite exciting. He is a
resident fellow in the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
We are glad to have you here. Please give us the answers to
some of the ones we have already had answers on, because you
have lived through this, so tell us about it.
Mr. Wiencek. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting
me here today to testify on something that is really extremely
important. I can testify firsthand as to both the importance of
what you are proposing and also to the insane difficulty that
descends upon any researcher who tries to use these records.
So, anything we can do to ameliorate that will be most welcome.
I would like to address, first of all, a larger question,
which is the importance of genealogy. I think that some people
have the perspective that it is something almost purely private
and almost an avocation. But, as a professional writer and
historian, I think I can tell you that we are on the edge of a
new era in history where we will make much more extensive use
of genealogies than we have in the past.
I am beginning to see how all of these individual strands
that families have been laboriously constructing over the last
couple of decades can be put together to form tapestries that
show us the trajectory of a community, the trajectory of the
rise of a race, and we are just now reaching the point where we
will have the critical mass of individual family research where
we can begin to put it together.
I have been asked to consult with Colonial Williamsburg on
a project called Forever Here; where they are trying to get a
better view of what slavery was like in Williamsburg. And to
whom are they turning? They are looking to genealogists, to
family historians among the families of the people who were
enslaved there. They are actively seeking out slave descendants
to find out: ``What have you found out about your family? What
can you share with us in terms of oral history, in terms of
documentation, in terms of family trees? What happened to these
people after they became free? We need to know that.''
In my next project, I am doing a book on George Washington.
Some of the first people I consulted with were African American
genealogists. I got in touch with people, and some of them came
to me when they found out what I was working on. I am seeking
out descendants of Washington slaves. How can you understand
Washington unless you understand his slaves, unless you
understand the community in which he lived? He lived in a
highly integrated community, and his slaves had an impact on
him. I am trying to get at the larger question of why he didn't
finish the revolution when he had a chance and set the slaves
free.
I am finding fascinating new information from family
historians, people who have been tracing their roots back to
Mount Vernon and other Washington and Custis plantations, very
quietly gathering up the documents that paint a fascinating
picture of what Washington's household was like. We are getting
information that we would never find from mainstream
historians.
In a similar vein, the Freedmen's Bureau records are an
extremely important link in this chain for people doing that
kind of research. I am going to use those records even in
relation to George Washington. Because at the moment the Civil
War ended, there were a great many former Washington slaves at
Mount Vernon, and they were--I know that they had almost daily
interactions with the Federal army, and I am expecting to find
some very interesting information in the Freedmen's Bureau
records about conditions at Mount Vernon, and I wouldn't be
surprised if some of those slaves have something to say about
family relationships that existed then in 1865 that will tell
me about family relationships in 1795.
That is the way it works. You take every shard of evidence
you can find from those records and then trace it back, and I
had a great deal of success with that in my book ``The
Hairstons.''
The other point I would like to make is that I think a lot
of people look upon these records and see their importance
primarily in terms of African American history, and of course
that is supremely important. But, the other thing is, these are
some of the best records we have for southern, local and
regional history, period.
Now, Tip O'Neill famously said, all politics is local. I
have come to believe that, to a great extent, all history is
local and that we really cannot hope to begin to understand the
history of this country until we understand the history of our
communities. It is only when you put a microscope on a region
that you begin to see certain things leap out. You begin to see
the establishment of businesses and farms and churches and
schools, and you begin to see really the deepest fabric of
American life, and that is only when you look at these places
under a microscope from a local perspective. I know from
experience that these Freedmen's Bureau records are, in many
cases, the best records we have for local history in that
crucial period of emancipation and its aftermath.
Now, as I mentioned, I made extensive use of these records,
and it nearly drove me insane. I worked with the records of
four States: Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi and
Tennessee. They vary greatly in their organization. In some
areas I found records that were very deep, because the local
officers were diligent and kept a wide variety of records and
were careful about sending them all into headquarters; and in
other areas you will just find the most perfunctory monthly
records and in order to get additional information you have to
dig really deeply.
But, I would make an appeal to you when you are considering
how to organize these records to give special attention to
indexing them by locality. I think that will be a supremely
important element.
I wrote a book on the Hairstons, a family who lived in a
certain group of counties, mainly in Virginia and North
Carolina; and it drove me crazy to try to isolate the
Freedmen's Bureau materials that dealt with those regions. The
method I finally came up with is that I went through all of the
monthly reports that were filed generically and I made a list
of all of the names of the officers and subassistant officers,
whoever signed a report having to do with those areas; and then
I went back to the so-called registers of letters with that
long list of names and copied out all of the index entries for
each of those officers and then went back to the letters and
read all of those letters and then looked for asterisks on the
letters that would indicate that there was another letter
somewhere else cross filed.
It went on forever, and there was no central index that
would allow me to go and find--if you wanted to find out what
happened in Richmond, a very important place, you couldn't do
it without laboriously going through this process, which would
take you weeks and weeks and weeks. I think that would be a
supremely important contribution, if we could index these by
locality.
To that end, I think that--you mentioned the partnership
with Florida. I think it would be wonderful if the Archives
could get in touch with researchers in every State where there
was a Freedmen's Bureau in operation, just get in touch with
the major universities there and say to them, go into your own
archives for the last 50 years and tell us which historians
have done dissertations and theses and other kinds of papers on
the Freedmen's Bureau. What have they done, what did they find,
and send that to us so that we can begin to put together a
massive bibliography of research on the Bureau.
The other thing is I would hire local researchers in each
State and say, go through the records that are available on
microfilm and make us sort of a county by county rough survey.
What kind of records did they turn in? How good are they?
I am not talking about doing an index, just a quick survey
to let us know what is there in a very preliminary way.
Mr. Horn. Well, a good example are the WPA records of the
1940's. Have they been helpful to you? State by State.
Mr. Wiencek. Yes. I used the WPA records. Some of the
originals are housed at the Library of Virginia in the State
archives, and I used some of the records here, in the National
Archives. I also made extensive use of the ex-slave interviews
that were done during the 1930's and 1940's. See, that material
is filed geographically, so it is very easy to get at.
And even though the Freedmen's Bureau records are filed
State by State, once you get within boundaries of the State,
the ground falls away beneath you. There is just so much
material. As I said, if you wanted to find out about what
happened in Richmond, you couldn't do it without weeks of
research, just to locate where to begin.
Mr. Horn. Well, as I get it, Dr. Kurtz, first we have to
get at the records, we have to microfilm them, and then we have
to get them in a computer situation where you can have name,
locality, and all the rest to solve your problem on weeks going
there, Mr. Wiencek. I can suffer with you on a lot of research
I have done, and that takes a long time. So, if we can
manipulate it after you get the base record, why, I think that
would be very helpful.
Mr. Wiencek. If I could make one brief comment, the
chairman alluded before to education. If these records were
more available and indexed in a rational way, they would be a
tremendous educational tool for high school and college
students across the country who wish to work with primary
sources. In studying a period of extreme importance and
ambiguity, if you would give advanced high school and college
students the chance to work with these original records and
say, all right, go in and pick a region, find out everything
you can about it and tell me what happened to the Blacks? What
happened to the Whites? What experiences did they report? What
did the government do? Just based on these primary documents.
And then assign them to go a little bit beyond that, maybe
get in touch with the local historical society or assign
someone to settle down with a local newspaper and say, well,
here we have reports of atrocities committed against the Black
people. What did the newspapers say? Did they report it at all?
Or how did they slant the news?
Assign someone else to go into a collection of letters from
that region and find out, well, what were the planter families
saying about conditions? How did their assessments match up
with what we are finding in these records?
It would be a tremendous educational resource. It is
difficult to teach that period, I think. The Civil War is
exciting, and the period right after is hard to get at. I think
if you did it through these primary documents, it would really
come alive for students.
Mr. Horn. Well, you are absolutely right. The southern
revisionists certainly didn't want to talk about
reconstruction.
Mr. Wiencek. No.
Mr. Horn. So, a lot of that just disappeared. It would be
fascinating to see if anything was even said in a newspaper
that related to activity of jailed slaves or whatever.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wiencek follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Dr. Kurtz, is it possible then where indexing
could be helping these researchers in terms of the locality and
different things to get at them from--I think it is exciting,
if you had students in Richmond, VA, and Long Beach, CA, there
would be a lot of things to learn from others. Because, in a
lot of our cities in southern California--I have one city that
is 85 percent, for example, Hispanic. I have another city where
part of it would be about 70 percent African American. And my
colleague here who authored this bill, she has a heavy African
American population in parts of her district. That would be a
very interesting thing on the Internet for high school students
to be talking to each other around the country.
Mr. Kurtz. Mr. Chairman, let me ask our expert, and I would
like to say that our agency is fortunate to have an expert of
the caliber of Regie Washington with us. Regie.
Mr. Washington. I just want to comment on the university
efforts and, just like Howard was saying, if you have
universities involved in a project--once you have the material
filmed, that is the key, getting the material filmed. Once you
have it filmed, if a university purchases the microfilm, they
have a huge tool of laborers in students and you can utilize
these students in terms of having them go in and do the
indexing projects and, at the same time, they are beginning to
learn about the Freedmen's Bureau which--I got a call the other
day and people hadn't even heard of the Freedmen's Bureau. So,
here you have an opportunity of a huge labor pool to go in and
do the indexing, identify those series that are conducive to
finding information about individuals, utilizing these students
to go in. At the same time, they are using primary sources; at
the same time, they are learning about the Freedmen's Bureau;
and, at the same time, they are doing a good service for the
African American community and the genealogical community,
historical community as well. So, I am intrigued by the idea of
using universities as a pool to get that kind of operation
done.
Mr. Kurtz. I think also in the indexing, responding to your
question, Mr. Chairman, yes, I think the locality aspect of the
information would be very important to capture. I mean, I think
it would be essential, actually. It wouldn't make any sense
without it.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, I think as the
chairman and I, both representing California, look at the
demographics, they change; and it is so important that we do
this on a locality basis to see from whence the L.A. County was
and now it has grown exponentially, the minority, just to see
what happened then, what happened now. I think for students,
being a former teacher myself, it would be incredibly
important. I think it is intriguing to have students begin this
process of look at what happened, whether the newspaper had
anything on it, all of those other facets that Dr. Wiencek
talked about, because then we will have students becoming more
involved in this process, more involved in the historical
aspects of not only the African Americans but the American
history in general. I think that is when we can then perhaps
tap them to become more involved in the political process and
what we are doing.
I think all of this has such a revolving interest for all
of us. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Let me ask about another category that comes to
mind, and that is the church records of birth, marriage, and
the county records of death, etc. To what degree does that
apply to a lot of the African mission? I think there were
churches strictly African American after the Civil War was
over, and I don't know if those records have been looked at,
but it seems to me that is another valuable record.
Mr. Wiencek. Those records are actually very endangered. A
lot of them are in private hands. What I have run across is
that I will contact a church and they will say we have records
going back to the 1940's and we don't know anything before
that. And then I will make some phone calls and I will find out
that the granddaughter of the church member has the records
going back to the 1870's because her grandfather had been
entrusted with them by a pastor at some point and took them
home, and they never got back to the church. And this happens
all the time. So, it takes a lot of detective work to find some
of these records, and they are very, very endangered, because
no one knows where they are.
Mr. Horn. Yes.
Mr. Burroughs. If I could followup on that. Some of the
most vital records for doing genealogy are records of birth,
marriage, and death--birth certificates, death certificates,
marriage licenses and marriage records. For most of the areas
that we are talking about, particularly in the south, many of
those records didn't exist until the 20th century. So when you
look at the 19th century, the records in the Freedmen's Bureau
that pertain to marriage and death and birth are some very,
very rare records that you just cannot get anywhere else. So
you are able to extend your research into the 19th century,
because many of those areas didn't have those records until
much later.
Mr. Horn. Interesting. How about plantation records? What
has happened to them? Do they just get burned or taken north,
or what?
Mr. Burroughs. Well, fortunately, the University
Publications of America have microfilmed 1,500 reels of
plantation records. Those have been available to scholars at
academic libraries and some public libraries and historical
societies around the country. That was a 10-year project that
was just concluded this year, so that is a very, very
voluminous collection. There are some plantation records within
the Freedmen's Bureau on a small basis where the Freedmen's
Bureau took over plantations and then took former slaves to
work those plantations and were paid for the first time. So,
there are huge numbers of plantations records that are
available on microfilm.
Mr. Wiencek. I got a call this week from an architect in
central Virginia who said she was working on the renovation of
a rural house, an old rural house, and they broke open a wall
and out tumbled bundles of records from slavery time. And they
said, can you come take a look at these and let us know if
there is some importance to them? I said, you bet.
Two weeks ago I was at a plantation that is in the
Washington family and they said, oh, you may be interested in
seeing this and they pulled out a ledger from the 1850's that
listed slaves being paid for certain jobs and the birth of a
slave child. I said, does anybody know about this? And they
said, oh, no, it is just in the family. So I have let the
University of Virginia know about the existence of that.
There are many, untold thousands of plantation records that
are still in private hands and embedded in walls or locked in
trunks that no one knows about it.
Mr. Horn. Fascinating. You have to be a detective in this
business.
Mr. Washington. Mr. Chairman, if I could just comment, one
of the documents that I brought today that is in one of the
bound volumes is a census of plantations from the Freedmen's
Bureau of Records where individuals were working on these
government plantations and, of course, you can see the names of
the individuals and it also lists the names of the former
owners. You might want to take a look at that document to get
an idea of some of the kinds of plantation types of records you
might find in Freedmen's Bureau of Records.
Mr. Horn. I am a book collector and I look at a lot of book
catalogs and I see occasionally documents of the 1840's,
1830's, 1810's, slaves and so forth, and there is a price on
that when the dealer is selling it. I am curious, when you find
a wall of records, does that family want to turn them over to a
university or the Archives? What kind of incentives can we put
out there to get those materials where scholars can have access
to them?
Mr. Wiencek. My impression is that they want them to end up
at a university and to be made available to researchers
everywhere. After I look at the records, I am going to see if
UVA is interested and then take it from there.
Mr. Horn. Does my colleague have any other questions?
Ms. Millender-McDonald. I do not. Thank you so much for
this hearing.
Mr. Horn. Well, you did a great job of bringing it up to
us.
Let me just see the changes in the language, if any. Well,
I thought that we did it with everybody. So, just let us know
if there is something that we need by the end of today in terms
of looking at the legislation and get it in to Mr. George, and
we will see if we need to put it in tomorrow with full
committee.
Mr. Kurtz. Thank you for that opportunity. We will, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. OK. Thank you.
I think we have covered every question we have here.
So, let me thank the staff that put this together.
The gentleman to my left, that Howard graduate you heard
about from the president, he has been anointed now in public as
well as going across the stage, J. Russell George, the very
distinguished staff director and chief counsel of this
subcommittee; and he has also had great help from Earl Pierce,
our professional staff member right behind him, who has gone
and looked at a lot of these records; our director of
communications, Bonnie Heald, is also back there; and then our
faithful clerk, Elizabeth Seong; and our intern, George Frazer,
they are working somewhere here; and Dr. Pearl-Alice Marsh of
Ms. Millender-McDonald's staff, who has done a lot of work on
this, and I think she is right back here.
And then the democratic counsel, Trey Henderson, is always
helpful and represents the ranking member, whoever it is for
the day; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk, who knows everybody and
all sorts of things. The court reporters, Doreen Dotzler and
Julie Bryan have been with us this morning. So we thank you all
for your role in this.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, just let me say, you
can see how thorough he is. He has really included everyone who
was a part of this today. Let me just compliment you, Mr.
Chairman, on how thorough you were in recognizing all of the
folks who have such a critical part in playing a role in this
piece of legislation. Again, I thank you for bringing it to
your committee, thanking all of the staff persons, especially
my senior policy advisor, Dr. Pearl-Alice Marsh, who has done
extensive research on this issue. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Well, I thank the gentlewoman from California;
and with those happy words, we will adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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