Union victory in the Civil War had brought about the abolishment of slavery and the emancipation of four million blacks. These former slaves were largely unskilled, illiterate, and without property or money. Various welfare agencies, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, were formed to help former slaves adapt to life outside of slavery and to divide up confiscated Confederate land amongst former slaves. This was crucial because in the South, landownership was the key to freedom, and this land was promised to the former slaves by the Union Army. President Andrew Johnson, a pro-white politician from Tennessee, ordered all land to be returned to its former owners, stripping the former slaves from their bid to fiscal independence. He was also an vehement …show more content…
Newly emancipated blacks found themselves right back to where they started, forced to work long hours on land that was not their own. In an attempt to restore the pre-emancipation system of race relations, the many Southern states passed the Black Codes. These legal codes stripped blacks of their newly gained rights forcing them to sign labor contracts in order to guarantee a stable labor supply. Thus, many African Americans were forced to become sharecroppers, “binding [themselves] to the orders” of their former masters (Document 2). They were allowed to use land and “manage said crops for said year” in exchange for giving a percent of the crop to the owner of the land (Document 2). Despite the bloody battles that had occurred, Southerns continued to exploit blacks, constraining them to their former roles with little opportunity to save money to purchase …show more content…
These individuals sought to punish the South for their insolence, and tried to prevent the former ruling class from returning to power. They passed the Military Reconstruction Bill of 1867, splitting the former Confederate states into five military districts, and outlined how the new government would be designed (Document 7). Under the careful eye of federal reinforcements, blacks men receive the right to vote and hold political offices, positions formally belonging to Southern Democrats. (To the disappointment of many women suffrage groups, women were still excluded from the political world. This would be remedied in 1920, following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.) In response, the outraged Southerns formed the Ku Klux clan, a secret organization used to terrorize local Republican leaders and blacks through beatings, lynching, and massacres (Document 5). The defenseless blacks turned to the federal government for protection, leading to the passage of the Enforcement Act of 1870, empowering the President to enforce the first sections of the 15th Amendment (Document 4). In addition to the rise of black leaders, many “carpetbaggers” from the North were pushed into political offices through support from black voters. The Southern Democrats condemned these Northerns, calling them “manipulat[ors] of the colored vote”, and fought against the “carpetbaggers”
There was a new Military Reconstruction Act that was passed to make sure African Americans new rights were protected. The carpetbaggers provided aid for emancipated African Americans. In the article “ North or South: Who Killed Reconstruction?” it shows how the carpetbaggers supported emancipated African Americans by the founding of Black Churches, Public schools, and Universities were built for black children. In this case, the northern states tried to help the southern states to keep reconstruction but the KKK took hands in their own
During the time period of 1860 and 1877 many major changes occurred. From the beginning of the civil war to the fall of the reconstruction, the United States changed dramatically. Nearly one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence which declared all men equal, many social and constitutional alterations were necessary to protect the rights of all people, no matter their race. These social and constitutional developments that were made during 1860 to 1877 were so drastic it could be called a revolution.
After the black Americans were freed from their slave masters they did not have ‘a cent in their pockets’ and ‘without a hut to shelter them’ . This obvious lack a home, and the monetary funds needed to support them [the freed slaves] and their families, together with the lack of widespread Government support meant that many slaves continued to live in poverty, and in many ways, they could have been better off (economically), had they been left in bondage . For this reason, many Southern slaves ‘had little choice but to remain as paid labourers or to become sharecroppers working on the land as before’ . Sharecropping, which generally involved the ex-slaves renting land, tools, and a house from a white landlord, working the land that is given to them, and then providing the landlord with one-half to two-thirds of the produce . ‘This system kept the black cotton producers in an inferior position’ , which means that while they were ‘officially free’; they were still stuck in the previous cycle of working for their previous masters, without hope of escape for a better life. While this is what most ex-slaves did, some, like Jourdan Anderson, who left the farm on which he, was prior to being freed, with his family, ‘would rather stay here and starve - and die’ than to have his girls ‘brought to shame by...
It was 1865, black men were tasting freedom, the confederation was defeated, the south was defeated but the unchained blacks had no real freedom. "A man maybe free and yet not independent," Mississippi planter Sammuel Agnew observed in his diary (Foner 481). This same year General Sherman issued the Special Field Order 15, in attempt to provide land for the ex-slaves. There was 40 acres of land and a mule waiting for the emancipated slaves, this gave hope for an economic development among blacks' communities. The Special Field Order 15 put all the land under federal control acquired by the government during the war to use for the homestead of the blacks. Even thought the offer of land some slave fled ...
After the Civil War, in 1865, the southern plantation owners were left with minimal labor. They were bitter over the outcome of the war and wanted to keep African Americans under their control. Black Codes were unique to the southern states, and each state had their own variation of them. In general, the codes compelled the freedmen to work. Any unemployed black could be arrested and charged with vagrancy. The ones that did work had hours, duties, and types of jobs dictated to them. Codes were also developed to restrict blacks from becoming successful. They discouraged owning and selling property, and raising and selling their own crops. Blacks were often prohibited from entering town without written permission from a white employer. A black found after 10 p.m. without a note could be arrested. Permission was even required from a black’s employer to live in a town! Section 5 of the Mississippi Black Codes states that every second January, blacks must show proof of residence and employment. If they live in town, a note from the mayor must b...
After the devastation left from the Civil War, many field owners looked for new ways to replace their former slaves with field hands for farming and production use. From this need for new field hands came sharecroppers, a “response to the destitution and disorganized” agricultural results of the Civil War (Wilson 29). Sharecropping is the working of a piece of land by a tenant in exchange for a portion of the crops that they bring in for their landowners. These farmhands provided their labor, while the landowners provided living accommodations for the worker and his family, along with tools, seeds, fertilizers, and a portion of the crops that they had harvested that season. A sharecropper had “no entitlement to the land that he cultivated,” and was forced “to work under any conditions” that his landowner enforced (Wilson 798). Many landowners viewed sharecropping as a way to elude the now barred possession of slaves while still maintaining field hands for labor in an inexpensive and ample manner. The landowners watched over the sharecroppers and their every move diligently, with harsh supervision, and pressed the sharecroppers to their limits, both mentally and physically. Not only were the sharecroppers just given an average of one-fourth of their harvest, they had “one of the most inadequate incomes in the United States, rarely surpassing more than a few hundred dollars” annually (Wilson 30). Under such trying conditions, it is not hard to see why the sharecroppers struggled to maintain a healthy and happy life, if that could even be achieved. Due to substandard conditions concerning sharecropper’s clothing, insufficient food supplies, and hazardous health issues, sharecroppers competed on the daily basis to stay alive on what little their landowners had to offer them.
The Civil War began with it the secession of seven southern slave states that soon grew to eleven confederate states. In 1865 the war ended with the surrendering of the confederate armies and the dissolution of the confederacy from the government. The time following the Civil War, was the Era of reconstruction when the Ku Klux Klan arose. The Civil War gave African Americans increasing equality which angered confederate followers. On January 1st, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that decreed that all slaves in the eleven confederate rebel states were free(14). In the Spring of 1865, Andrew Johnson took office after Abraham lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. During the time of reconstruction three major amendments were passed that furthermore pushed the nation towards equality. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment was passed by Lincoln, freeing all slaves and abolishing slavery. In 1868, under Johnson's presidency, full citizenship was given to any native-born American, including former slaves with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally in 1870, with the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, no citizen could be denied the right to vote because of their skin color or race. Along with the passing of these amendments Andrew Johnson made dramatic changes to Lincoln's original plan of
...stocracy to indirectly force poor blacks into working as tenant farmers or sharecroppers, basically slavery by a different name. As planters needed more land and workers to keep up with the demand for cotton, they looked to the Gulf Coast and Mexico as possible territory for increased cotton cultivation. The postwar exploitation of freedmen and the desire of southern planters to exploit Mexico in order to increase cotton production both demonstrate the materialism and greed of the southern aristocracy.
As a result of the failure of Johnson's Reconstruction, Congress proposed its own plan. The 14th amendment was one of the many things implemented under this plan. Among other things, this amendment forbade ex-Confederate leaders from holding political office, and gave freedmen their citizenship. The Southern rejection of this amendment, largely as a result of the actions of their former Confederate leaders then in state office, paved the way for the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This dismantled all Southern governments and established military control over the South. It guaranteed freedmen the right to vote under new state constitutions, and required the Southern states to ratify the 14th amendment. With the inclusion of African-American votes in southern elections, and with the help of Northerners known as "Carpet Baggers" and other white Southerners known as "Scalawags," the Republican Party gained almost complete control over the American South.
Another goal of African Americans was the ownership of land. To the freedmen, land ownership was equivalent to economic independency. However, they were mistaken. Economic independency was an unrealistic goal in the southern environment. As former slaves, African Americans were very familiar to the agricultural life style. As a result of Sherman's raids across the south, large plots of land were left uninhabited. Vast amounts of freedmen took the opportunity to occupy these lands. In 1866, Congress also passed the Southern Homestead Act giving African Americans access to public lands in five southern states. Contrary to what the freedmen believed, land ownership did not ensure financial success. Most land owned by African Americans was small and had an inferior value compared to white farms.
In one Mississippi black code, the law allowed for blacks to own personal property, but stipulated that free blacks could only rent or lease land, or tenements, within the city limits. This prevented blacks from owning their own farms outside the city. The law was very apparently contradictory to itself in the fact that it stated blacks could own property “to the same extent that white persons may,” but then set the restrictions on renting and leasing land which only blacks were confined to. The law also required that blacks have a “lawful home or employment.” This, combined with the previous restrictions on renting and leasing land and housing, ensured that whites would retain control over where Negroes could live. By requiring them to have a home, and then restricting them to renting ...
African American living conditions within the south were still extremely poor almost 100 years after the end of the Civil War. Due to regional and state legislation retaining the ability to make decisions surrounding civil rights, miniscule amounts of progress had been made. ‘Jim Crow’ laws both directly endangered black citizens and severely limited their rights, allowing whites to maintain dominance over social and economic conditions in the South. These laws included specifications such as the poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and segregation. The political conditions overall resulted in a stark, two-tiered system that placed blacks as second class citizens (Cassedy). Economic inequality also contributed to mistreatment of African American citizens. After the abolition of slavery, sharecropping became common. Sharecropping involved ex-slaves, or their descendants, renting land from plantation owners and farming it in exchange for high charges. A single bad year could tip the balance into utter destitution, whether from unbalance surrounding supply and demand, or crop loss stemming from climate extremes or pests. Overall...
Sharecropping and the Jim Crow laws maintained a chokehold on the freemen and poor white sharecroppers. After the American Civil War, sharecropping replaced the big plantations throughout the soft. Sharecropping was a response to economic depression caused by the end of slavery. Many poor white and black farmers earned a living working the land owned by someone else. The first sharecroppers were the former black slaves. The system continued to enslave the freemen to a certain degree because of the control the landowners possessed. The laws benefited the owners and not the croppers. The poor white farmers eventually entered the system. The owner of the land would provide the sharecroppers land and tools to cultivate the fields. The poor sharecropper would be responsible for purchasing seeds, fertilizers and anything else, which a farmer needed to have available. With little room for any profits, this became the new slavery.
The conclusion of the Civil War in favor of the north was supposed to mean an end to slavery and equal rights for the former slaves. Although laws and amendments were passed to uphold this assumption, the United States Government fell short. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were proposed and passed within five years of the Civil War’s conclusion. These amendments were to create equality throughout the United States, especially in the south where slavery had been most abundant. Making equality a realization would not be an easy task. This is because many problems were not perceived before and during the war. The reunification of the country would prove to be harder than expected, and entry into a new lifestyle would be difficult for both the freedmen and their former oppressors. The thirteenth amendment clearly prohibits slavery in the United States. All slaves were to be freed immediately when this amendment was declared ratified in December of 1865, but what were they to do? Generations of African-Americans had been enslaved in America, and those who had lived their whole lives in slavery had little knowledge of the outside world. This lack of knowledge would not be helpful in trying to find work once they were released. Plantation owners with a lack of workforce were eager to offer extremely low pay to their former slaves. In addition, the work force of the plantation would often live in the same quarters they did while enslaved. These living condition...
Former plantation owners “let” them rent out a piece of their property, but because the renters had no money, they had to pay the former plantation owners with a share of the crops they grew. Often, the owner would take most of their crops so the renters barely got any money from selling. Some of the Black Codes forced former slaves to sign contracts, making them to work for long hours for small wages, while some even required them to work on chain gangs in the fields in the plantations that they just came from.