1860s

• At the end of 1960, Southern states began leaving the Union and formed own Confederacy.
• 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating black people could no longer be owned as property by others.
• In 1865, all slaves were formally freed due to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
• New rights of BAs:

  • Have their plantation marriages legalised
  • Worship freely in own churches
  • Own property
  • Become educated
  • Travel freely
• Around 3 and a half million former slaves joined the society.
• At the end of the Civil War the southern states were devastated. 2/3 of its wealth was destroyed. Court systems and police had broken down everywhere. 50% of agricultural machinery gone. It took 15 years for cotton production to return to pre-war levels.
• After Lincoln was assassinated, President Andrew Johnson took his place.
• In 1868 the 14th Amendment gave all freed BAs citizenship and equal protection under the law.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1866 excluded Native Americans but asserted that all other races were full citizens of the United States.
• In March 1867, during Reconstruction, Congress passed a Military Reconstruction Act which divided south into military districts.
• President Johnson’s aim was to return to pre-war relations.
• Radical Republicans thought everyone should live out the ’American Dream’ and even though Johnson exercised his right of veto on major pieces of congressional legislation, they were overridden with 2/3 majorities in Congress. Johnson was weakened politically after a failed impeachment of the President.
• Over 700000 black men could now vote and had a major role in electing members into Conventions.
• By 1868, civil rights for BAs on equal terms with whites. Black representatives now in position of real political power, sharing it with pro-northern scalawags or carpetbaggers.
• The Freedman’s Bureau was set up by fed gov in March 1865 to support freed slaves. Supported work of black self-help groups in providing education for black children. Their traditional curriculum would train black lawyers, scientists and teachers.
• Most common route for freed slaves was sharecropping, which was economic slavery. It was also frequently one-sided and had no control over what was bought.
• Crop-lien system encouraged one crop economy (cotton). This led to BAs feeling cheated in agreements.
• The South Carolina’s Freedmen’s Convention (1865) said “we be recognised as men… right of trial by jury... schools established... equity and justice”
• Black Codes were set up in 1865/6. White southerners has a nightmare vision of a black man taking white women and white livelihoods.
• Frederick Douglass remarked ”free from the individual master but a slave to society”.
• The Ku Klux Klan was formed in Dec 1865 as a threatening reaction to black freedom.
• By 1867, the KKK asserted that whites were ‘endowed with an evident superiority over all over races’ and their dominion was God-given.