Reconstruction and the black experience

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Reconstruction and the black experience

• 1865-1877

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Responding to freedom

• First reaction of newly-freed African Americans
  get away from the plantation!
• Seek jobs, new way of life, families
• Even those who were treated well and received
  good wages left If I dont, how will I ever
  know Im freed..
• Families are rebuilt
• Freedmens bureau helps reunite families
• Slaves could now marry legally
• No more fear of being sold away from family

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Freedmens schools

• During Reconstruction, the freed people gave a
  high priority to the creation of schools, often
  with the assistance of the Freedmen's Bureau and
  northern missionary societies.
• Between 1865 and 1870, the Freedmens Bureau
  spent 5 million just on education!

This photograph of a newly established school was
taken around 1870, showing both the barefoot
students and the teacher. (Library of Congress)
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• More than 150,000 African American students
  attended 3000 schools by 1869
• Why was education so important to freed people?
• Many white Southerners were against freemens
  schools
• Attacks on teachers
• Burning schools

African Americans of all ages eagerly pursued the
opportunity freedom provided to gain an
education. This young woman in Mt. Meigs,
Alabama, is helping her mother learn to read.
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40 acres and a mule

• Most freedmen wanted/expected land to help them
  become economically independent
• Rumor spread that the government would give all
  ex-slaves forty acres and a mule to start their
  new lives
• Radical Republicans proposed taking away land
  from plantation owners and giving it to freed
  people, but the idea did not have enough support
  in Congress to pass
• Many felt that civil/voting rights were enough
• Land reform would be too harsh on Southerners
• Result freed people turned to contracts or
  sharecropping to make a living

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Contract system vs. sharecropping
In the contract system, freed African Americans
worked on the plantation in exchange for wages,
shelter, and food
In the sharecropping system, workers rented a
plot of land in exchange for a share of the crop

• Pros
• Families without land now had a place to farm
• Landowners had a source of cheap labor
• Cons
• Farmers wanted to grow food crops for their
  families but landowners wanted them to grow cash
  crops like cotton surplus of cotton actually
  drove the price DOWN, resulting in poverty!
• Cycle of debt created by the system tied workers
  to the land (p. 544-545)

• Pros
• African Americans could decide whom to work for
• Planters could not abuse them or split up
  families
• Cons
• Like in slavery, workers could not leave the
  plantation without permission
• Planters often cheated workers out of wages and
  benefits
• Laws punished workers for breaking contracts even
  if they did so for good reason!

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The Barrow plantation, 1860-1881
Before the Civil War, about 135 slaves worked on
the plantation, supervised by an overseer and a
slave foreman. After the war, the former slaves
who remained on the plantation signed labor
contracts with owner David Barrow. Freedmen grew
cotton for wage, but they disliked the new
arrangement. In the late 1860s, Barrow subdivided
his land into tenant farms of twenty-five to
thirty acres, and freedmen moved their households
from the old slave quarters to their own farms.
By 1881, 161 tenants lived on the Barrow
plantation, at least half of them children. One
out of four families was named Barrow.
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Sharecropping gave African Americans more control
over their labor than did labor contracts. But
sharecropping also contributed to the south's
dependence on one-crop agriculture and helped to
perpetuate widespread rural poverty.
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At plantation stores like this one, photographed
in Mississippi in 1868, merchants recorded in
their ledger books debts that few sharecroppers
were able to repay.
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African Americans and the politics of
Reconstruction

• Of all the opportunities now open to African
  Americans during Reconstruction, the right to
  vote was seen as the most important!
• During Reconstruction, more than 600 African
  Americans served in state legislature, and
  sixteen of the new U.S. congressmen/senators were
  African Americans as well
• Important names include Hiram Revels and Robert
  B. Elliot
• Which political party did they support?

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Reconstruction statistics African American
members of Congress
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White resistance to black rights

• In addition to poverty, freedmen faced violent
  racism!
• Many whites (especially in the South) opposed
  giving African Americans opportunities to rise in
  society
• As a result, groups formed to intimidate African
  Americans to keep them from asserting their rights

This 1866 cartoon opposed the Freedmens Bureau
because it would keep African Americans in
idleness at the expense of the white man.what
sort of message was this cartoonist trying to
send?
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The KKK

• The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization that
  aimed to remove Republicans from power and
  restore white control of the South through
  violence
• Lynching blacks for crimes committed against
  whites were a common tactic
• Targets of the KKK included prosperous African
  Americans and white Republicans
• Klan victims had little protection! Military
  authorities hired by Johnson were against
  Reconstruction and simply ignored the violence

In this picture, the artist has portrayed a group
of bizarrely dressed Klansmen contemplating the
murder of a white Republican. (Library of
Congress)
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• The KKK terrorized African Americans to keep them
  from voting!
• These tactics helped Democrats increase their
  power
• The KKK was finally outlawed in 1871, but it was
  not the only group trying to keep African
  Americans powerless!
• Alabama's White League, formed in 1874, strove to
  oust Republicans from office by intimidating
  black voters.

• To political cartoonist Thomas Nast, such
  vigilante tactics suggested an alliance between
  the White League and the outlawed Ku Klux Klan.
  (Harper's Weekly, October 24, 1874)

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Myths of Black (or Carpetbagger) Reconstruction

• Myth 1
• These southern governments were dominated by
  blacks
• Myth 2
• foolish blacks were manipulated by CBs
• Myth 3
• These state govts were corrupt extravagant
• Myth 4
• The South suffered under them for a decade

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Reality of Black or Carpetbagger Reconstruction

• Blacks dominated none of Southern Govts
• Southern whites (scalawags) were in Govt (those
  who were not banned)
• There was some corruption more in North!
• Taxes/spending went up rebuilding needed
• Only in 3 states did Radical Republican
  Governments last a decade in other states, it
  ended sooner.

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• Scandal, corruption depression led to
  Democrats winning the House in 1874
• In 76 election, 3 southern states (FL, SC GA)
  sent in 2 sets of electoral votes 1 for Democrat
  Tilden, 1 for Republican Hayes. Which ones
  should count?
• Electoral Commission 5 Sens, 5 Reps, 5 SCourt
  Justices, BUT 8 GOPs 7 Dems - Hayes wins
• Congress had to approve ECs report and Dems
  controlled House.
• Southern Democrats cut a deal with Republicans
  Pull troops out of South and well support Hayes
• Winner of 1877 Compromise Rutherfraud Hayes