Freedmen's savings bank network serves 70,000 depositors

Congress chartered the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company on March 3, 1865, the same day it established the Freedmen's Bureau. By 1872 it held accounts for over 70,000 Black Americans with $3.7 million in deposits. Though it collapsed in 1874 due to mismanagement, it represented the first large-scale effort to build Black financial infrastructure and savings culture in America.