In state courts accepted by the Bureau, the proceedings in Negro cases were conducted in the same manner as for the whites.
The educational work of the Bureau was at first confined to cooperation with such Northern religious and benevolent societies as were organizing schools and churches for the Negroes.

After the first year, the Bureau extended financial aid and undertook a system of supervision over Negro schools.

The teachers employed were Northern whites and Negroes in about equal numbers.

Confiscated Confederate property was devoted to Negro education, and in several states the assistant commissioners collected fees and percentages of the Negroes' wages for the benefit of the schools.

In addition the Bureau expended about six million dollars.
The intense dislike which the Southern whites manifested for the Freedmen's Bureau was due in general to their resentment of outside control of domestic affairs and in particular to unavoidable difficulties inherent in the situation.