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| Major-General O.O. Howard,
Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, on the 12th
of July issued a circular of general instruction to his subordinate officers throughout
the South. The State Commissioners are to appoint district agents to assist them in the
protection of the freedmen, the adjustment of rates of wages to be paid them by the
planters, the establishment and management of schools for the education of the colored
people, and to make arrangements for supplying their medical needs. On these and various
other matters monthly reports are to be rendered. It is particularly charged that no
apprenticeship system or other substitute for slavery shall be tolerated. Suffering to
some degree, General Howard says, may result from this positive regulation; but suffering,
he adds, is preferable to slavery, and is to some extent the necessary consequence of
events. |
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