The Freedman's Bureau

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread” (Genesis 3:19) is a quote from the Bible that was used in a poster encouraging others that the Freedman’s Bureau was bad and should not be passed. I was kind of confused by the inclusion of this quote in the poster. The poster, as a whole, was trying to show the message that the Freedman’s Bureau would make blacks free and idle and the whites would have to struggle and work hard, and this act would thereby “reverse” the roles of blacks and whites in society. This image further went on to implicate that the passing of this act would create a huge burden on the shoulder’s of white people because not only would they actually have to work, but they would have to pay, through tax dollars, for the improvement of the lifestyle of blacks.  Through this image, it is quite clear that the author wanted to portray the blacks as savage lazy brutes and whites as people who shouldn’t have to work, but now have to because they can’t force other people to do the work for them anymore. This brings me to the quote; This quote is an extract from the Bible and is about Adam and Eve and how they now have to work for their own food because they broke a law and got kicked out of Eden. However, the inclusion of this quote in this picture, implies that the whites did something wrong to the blacks because they did something wrong to have to work for themselves, just as Adam and Eve had to provide for themselves because Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. Therefore, doesn’t this quote mean that slavery was a sin in this context? This is the way that I interpreted the quote, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the way the author felt because the author of this poster seems very anti-black and pro-white supremacy, and I therefore think that the inclusion of this quote in the author’s poster weakened his argument.