Category request: Add a category for Southern Claims Commission

Question

There was an act of U.S. Congress in March 1871, to allow compensation to southerners who were loyal to the Union but lost property to the Union in the course of the Civil War. The Southern Claims Commission was set up to look into these claims.

The National Archives and Fold 3 have records, including testimony from many of these applicants (claimants), which gives an interesting (but brief) insight into their lives. A good number of the claimants are free born Blacks, because their loyalty to the Union could usually be shown, and being free born, they had property that could be lost.

It would be nice to have a category for this. I'm not sure if it would go in Civil War, although these are civilians, or in Reconstruction

Comments

Since it post-dates the war [edited to add: and occurred during the ten years after the war], I'd guess that Reconstruction would be more appropriate of the two.

Answer 1

If you use this on profiles, wouldn't you use Southern Claims Commission Claimants as the category name? Using just Southern Claims Commission, to me, indicates members of the commission.

Comments

Good point. This is why I didn't want to go down the path of arbitrarily creating a category myself, which apparently is an option.

That name is a bit bulky, but I don't think it can be avoided... it appears that the act itself didn't have a name other than the Act of Congress of March 3d 1871, which isn't very descriptive.