The tendency of their work was to create in the Negroes a pervasive distrust of the whites.
The prevalent delusion in regard to an impending division of the lands among the blacks had its origin in the operation of the war-time confiscation laws, in some of the Bureau legislation, and in General Sherman's Sea Island order, but it was further fostered by the agents until most blacks firmly believed that each head of a family was to get "40 acres and a mule." This belief seriously interfered with industry and resulted also in widespread swindling by rascals who for years made a practice of selling fraudulent deeds to land with red, white, and blue sticks to mark off the bounds of a chosen spot on the former master's plantation.

The assistant commissioners labored hard to disabuse the minds of the Negroes, but their efforts were often neutralized by the unscrupulous attitude of the agents.
As the contest over reconstruction developed in Washington, the officials of the Bureau soon recognized the political possibilities of their institution.

After midyear of 1866, the Bureau became a political machine for the purpose of organizing the blacks into the Union League, where the rank and file were taught that reenslavement would follow Democratic victories.

Nearly all of the Bureau agents aided in the administration of the reconstruction acts in 1867 and in the organization of the new state and local governments and became officials under the new regime.

They were the chief agents in capturing the solid Negro vote for the Republican party.
Neither of the two plans for guiding the freedmen into a place in the social order--the "Black Laws" and the Freedmen's Bureau--was successful.