Final answer:
The Freedmen's Bureau assisted formerly enslaved people with starting farms by helping them take possession of abandoned land, but efforts for wide-scale land redistribution were thwarted, leading many into sharecropping.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Freedmen's Bureau helped formerly enslaved people start their own farms primarily by helping them take ownership of abandoned land. While the Freedmen's Bureau did establish schools and helped in reunifying families, significant efforts were made towards aiding Black farmers. The idea of 'Forty Acres and a Mule' was floated, but ultimately there was no large-scale redistribution of land due to President Johnson's policies and the pressure to return lands to White landowners. Despite efforts to promote independence for freed individuals, many faced challenges due to the resistance of Whites to sell land, leading many into sharecropping arrangements where they worked someone else's land for a share of the harvest.