History From Reconstruction Through Ww1

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This survey paper will explore the early events of Reconstruction during and immediately after the Civil War. The topics that will be addressed in this survey paper will be the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen's Bureau, the Black Code, the Fourteenth Amendment and finally some political and social achievements of Reconstruction. Reconstruction to African Americans began as a feeling of joy and triumph for their freedom which was taken away quicker than it took to receive but it just wasn't called slavery anymore. Emancipation Proclamation/The Thirteenth Amendment The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 issued by President Lincoln was set up to free blacks from slavery. Soon after Congress enacted and the states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the nation (Library of Congress). After the Civil War, I feel the biggest problem in the South was labor. To the new African American's freedom meant freedom from white control, autonomy as individuals and as a community. For the most part black people wanted to work for themselves and not for their former masters. But, most black chose to leave the South altogether. Freedmen's Bureau On March 4, 1865, the U.S. government created a temporary federal agency - the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands- to assist 4 million freed slaves in making the transition from slavery to freedom. The agency distributed trainloads of food and clothing provided by the federal government to freed slaves and Southern white refugees (Freedmen's Bureau). The Freedmen's bureau helped to establish a system of wage labor. An advantage of this system was that it gave blacks the power to break contracts and move if they wanted to. The Bureau built hosp... ... middle of paper ... ...oned in this paper this new life was unfortunately not a life of equality but it was a change from being a slave. This of course was the most important success of the Reconstruction. This unfortunately was overlooked and southern whites began for example using segregation, lynching, and codes in place of the former slave days to keep blacks "under control". Works Cited Hine, Darlene C., Hine, William C., Harrold, Stanley: The African-American Odyssey – Volume Two: Since 1865. Second Edition. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2003. Mississipi Black Code http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/…/medialib/timeline/docs/sources/theme_primarysources_Civil_Rights_1.html Freedmen Bureau http://www.freedmensbureau.com/ Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: http://www.loc.gov http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ms/county/attala/Freedmen'sAct1863.htm

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