history

• Reconstruction


  Took place at the end of the Civil War with the ratification of the 13th amendment (which outlawed slavery in the United State)
• Former slaves, now freedmen, were technically free but did not mean they were independent
• Many freedmen had no material possessions, money, or formal education
• After the war many plantations were left abandoned by their former owners
• The government took control of these abandoned plantations
• The plantations were not given to the slaves that had worked the land
• The land was leased (rented) to white planters and investors from the North
• One African American newspaper wrote that the slaves had been made into "serfs" by the white northerners who'd freed them
• In early 1865, Union General Sherman held a conference in Savannah, Georgia with African-American church leaders and former slaves


  1. They told Sherman that the one thing they would need to protect their freedom and to start a new life for themselves was land

  2. Four days later Sherman issued Special Field Order #15
• Special Field Order #15


  • Sections of land from South Carolina down to Florida to be set aside for settlement of black families
  • Ban on settlement in those specifically listed areas by white families (only US military personnel allowed to enter)
  • Up to 40 acres of farmable land near a water channel with the protection of the military until the owners can protect them
• The order was a short-lived promise for Blacks
• U.S. president Andrew Johnson (a Democrat from North Carolina in the south) overturned Sherman's directive in the fall of 1865, after the war had ended, and returned most of the land along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it
• Abraham Lincoln created the Freedmen's Bureau


  1. An agency dedicated to assisting former-slaves acquire education, health care, food, clothing and shelter

  2. Teachers from the Freedmen's Bureau helped to establish thousands of schools for former slaves

  3. Between 1865 and 1870, the Freedmen's Bureau had spent $5 million on education alone

  4. The Bureau built hospitals and sent doctors to help former slaves

  5. The Bureau helped to reunite families that had been separated through slave trade

  6. The Bureau also tried to help former slaves acquire land and to build new homes
• 14th Amendment


  Proposed by the Republican Congress in 1866, stated that all people born in the United States were citizens and had the same rights, and granted equal protection under the law
• Initially, southern states refused to support the 14th Amendment (as did President Andrew Johnson)
• The Republican Congress reacted by passing the Reconstruction Acts of 1867


  1. Dividing the south into 5 military districts, each to be controlled by an army commander

  2. The law also stated that southern states must ratify the 14th Amendment to be readmitted back into the Union
• The 14th Amendment was ratified a short time later in 1868
• 15th Amendment


  Ratified in 1870, stated that U.S. citizens could not be stopped from voting on the basis of "race, color or previous condition of servitude"
• The 15th Amendment did not extend voting rights to women
• Immediately after the Civil War, African-Americans were able to participate in the democratic process
• Former-slaves were elected to southern state legislatures and to Congress
• Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce of Mississippi became the first African-Americans elected to the U.S. Senate
• Twenty African-Americans were elected to the House of Representatives (from South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama and other Confederate states)
• In 1866 African Americans used their political power to help pass the first Civil Rights Act of 1866


  Which banned exclusion of African-Americans from hotels, theaters, railroads and other public places
• During the early part of the Reconstruction Era, the country seemed like a much better place for freedmen
• If former-slaves hoped to defend these newly acquired rights on their own, they would need land
• Owning land would give them financial independence from wealthy, white southerners
• Without financial independence, the freedmen would still have to rely on whites for food, clothing, and shelter
• Sharecropping


  A system under which a worker rented a plot of land from a wealthy landowner, the landowner provided workers with tools, seed and housing, and when the harvest came, the landowners would take a portion of the crops as labor
• Sharecropping caused many problems
• Renters wanted to grow food to feed their families, but landowners wanted the renters to grow cash crops like cotton and tobacco
• Landowners had final say in determining what crops would be grown
• Renters then had to buy food from stores (usually owned by the same people who owned the land)
• This meant that sharecroppers were very dependent on landowners and could not exercise much freedom
• Most southerners did not believe in racial equality and they did not want the federal government to establish laws that granted equal rights to African Americans
• They were angered by the Civil Rights law, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and by the actions of the Freedmen's Bureau
• As the Reconstruction Era progressed and southern states began to gain more power, they searched for ways to limit the new rights that African Americans had gained
• Black codes


  Laws that sought to limit the rights of African Americans without violating the 14th and 15th Amendments
• Under black codes, courts had the right to take African American children away from their parents if the court felt as though the parents could not adequately support their children
• The codes required all African Americans to have jobs that had been approved by whites or they could be jailed or fined