More About Freedman's Bank

This is a press release from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It's ironic that the devastating failure of a financial institution designed to help former slaves has now yielded the greatest repository of lineage-linked African-American records known to exist. Containing more than 480,000 names, the Freedman's Bank records offer documentation about several generations of former slaves. These records provide their descendants, an estimated 8-10 million African Americans, precious clues to their past.

William Alexander Haley, chairman of the Alex Haley Center, said, "The Freedman’s Bank records may be more than just an historical record. They may be the Rosetta Stone -- the piece that allows you to go in and make the connection."

The Freedman’s Bank Savings and Trust Company was chartered in 1865 with the primary objective to assist former slaves and African-American soldiers with their new financial responsibilities. Ideally, this bank would be a permanent financial institution for savings deposits only and assist families with the challenges they faced in their transition from slavery to freedom. It was also designed to provide a place, safe from swindlers, to deposit money while individuals learned personal finance management skills. But mismanagement and outright fraud caused the bank to collapse in 1874, dashing the hopes and dreams of many African Americans.

Reginald Washington of the National Archives and Records Administration said, "In less than a decade, an estimated 70,000 depositors had opened and closed accounts, with bank deposits totaling more than $57 million. . . . The closure of Freedman’s Bank devastated the African-American community. An idea that began as a well-meaning experiment in philanthropy had turned into an economic nightmare for tens of thousands of African Americans."

The records of the Freedman’s Bank are microfilmed copies of the Registers of Signatures of Depositors in Branches of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, 1865-1874 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M816, Record Group 101). This 55-volume collection is comprised of the surviving records of 29 out of 37 branches of the bank.

Remarkably, the records of an institution that caused so much pain among African Americans following the Civil War now hold keys for their posterity to discover their roots. The bank records contain signatures of thousands of depositors along with some of the following personal identification information:

• Date the account was opened
• Age, place of birth, where raised, plantation, and current residence
• Name of former master or mistress, occupation and employer
• Names of members such as spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, and other relatives
• Other remarks such as assigned military units during the Civil War
In particular, remarks in many of the records document family relationships and relatives who were sold into slavery to other locations. Freedman’s Bank project co-director Marie Taylor said: "There isn’t anything like this for any ethnic group I know of, particularly for this time period. These people were torn apart by slavery and these records can help put those families back together."

When compared to other genealogical sources of the late 1800s, the records of the Freedman’s Bank are small and incomplete. But for many African-American families, these records provide an important link through the difficult and often painful period immediately following the abolition of slavery.