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Abstract
The Freedmens Bureaus main task was to provide former slaves a smoother and more prosperous transition into economic freedom after the end of the Civil War in April 1865. While the intentions of the Bureau were noble, under the guidance of O.O. Howard, the Bureau failed to properly establish fair labor practices for freedmen across the South. The lack of meaningful standardized labor contracts in combination with fixed wage rates prevented freedmen from achieving a level playing field with planters, which ultimately led to freedmen being cheated and used through unfair labor contracts. Due to a lack of regulation by the federal Bureau offices, local Bureau agents often had no power to stop the legal approval of blatantly abusive labor contracts. Because of these failures by the Bureau in the year 1865, planters were well on their way to establishing widespread sharecropping practices by 1866.