The American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was charged by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton in March 1863 with investigating the status of the slaves and former slaves who were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Stanton appointed Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, James McKaye, and Robert Dale Owen as commissioners, all three of whom served from the creation of the committee in 1863 through to their submission of its final report in May 1864.