The South after the Civil War

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The South after the Civil War
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South in Ruins

• Much of the South was in ruins at the end of
  the Civil War. Confederate money was worthless,
  and most Confederate banks were closed. Entire
  cities had been burned. Many railroads, bridges,
  plantations, and farms had been destroyed. The
  years following the war were hard ones for all
  Southerners. For the more than 4 million former
  enslaved African Americans living there, however,
  these years also brought new hope.

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Freedmens Bureau

• Before the war ended, in March 1865, the U.S.
  Congress set up the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,
  and Abandoned Landsthe Freedmens Bureau. It
  helped all needy people in the South, although
  freedmenmen, women, and children who had been
  slaveswere its main concern.

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Freedmens Bureau

• Before the war ended, in March 1865, the U.S.
  Congress set up the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,
  and Abandoned Landsthe Freedmens Bureau. It
  helped all needy people in the South, although
  freedmenmen, women, and children who had been
  slaveswere its main concern.

Big Ideas

• Freedmens Bureau
• Mainly aided former slaves in South

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Freedmens Bureau

• Many former slaves were wandering through the
  country looking for a way to start a new life.
  The Freedmens Bureau gave these people the food
  and supplies they needed. It also helped some
  white farmers rebuild their farms. The most
  important work of the Freedmens Bureau was
  education. Newly freed African Americans were
  eager to learn to read and write. To meet this
  need, the Freedmens Bureau built more than 4,000
  schools and hired thousands of teachers.

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Freedmens Bureau
The Freedmens Bureau provided food, clothing,
jobs, medical care, and education for millions of
former slaves and poor whites.
A teacher and elementary school students posing
on the steps of the Hill School, ca. late 19th
Century. The school was a part of the
Christiansburg Institute, which was first opened
by the U. S. Freedmen's Bureau in 1866.
(Montgomery County, VA)
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Freedmens Bureau

• The Freedmens Bureau also wanted to help
  former slaves earn a living by providing them
  with land to farm. Unfortunately this plan
  didnt work. The land was to come from the
  plantations taken or abandoned during the war,
  but the U.S. government decided to give those
  plantations back to their original owners. In
  the end most former slaves were not given any
  land. Without the money to buy land of their
  own, they had to find work where they could.

Freedmen at Richmond, Virginia, April 1865. At
the end of the Civil War, the future of African
Americans such as these was less than clear. They
had their freedom, but what else did they have?
The answer to this question was to preoccupy the
nation for the next several years and, in the
end, was to prove less than satisfactory to the
freedmen.
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Some Radical Republicans wanted to give each
freedman 40 acres and a mule. However, all the
freedmen were given was their freedom.
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Freedmens Bureau

• Many formers slaves ended up going back to
  work on plantations. Planters welcomed them
  because their fields needed to be plowed and
  crops planted. Now the planters had to pay the
  former slaves for their work.
• Because there was not much money, many
  landowners paid workers in shares of crops rather
  than in cash. This system was known as
  sharecropping. A landowner gave a worker a
  cabin, mules, tools, and seed. The sharecropper
  then farmed the land. At harvest, the landowner
  took a share of the crops plus enough extra to
  cover the cost of the workers housing and
  supplies. What was left was the workers share.

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Freedmens Bureau

• Sharecropping gave owners the help they needed
  to work their fields while giving the former
  slaves work for pay. Sadly, few people got ahead
  through sharecropping. When crops failed, both
  the landowner and sharecropper suffered. Even in
  good times, most workers shares were very
  little, if anything at all.

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Furnishing Merchant Tenant Farmer Landowner
Loans tools and seed up to 60 interest to tenant farmer to plant spring crop. Farmer also secures food, clothing, andother necessities oncredit from merchant until the harvest. Merchant holds lien mortgage on part of tenants future crops as repayment of debt. Plants crop, harvests in autumn. Turns over up to ½ of crop to land owner as payment of rent. Tenant gives remainder of crop to merchant inpayment of debt. Rents land to tenant in exchange for ¼ to ½ of tenant farmers future crop.
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Who were the carpetbaggers?

• After the Civil War, Southerners resented
  northerners who took advantage of the South
  during Reconstruction. What did many Southerners
  call these Northerners. They called them
  carpetbaggers because they carried around
  carpetbags. A carpetbag is a bag usually made
  from an oriental rug.

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Carpetbaggers

• To rebuild bridges, buildings, and railroads,
  the Souths Reconstruction governments had to
  increase taxes. White Southerners blamed the
  higher taxes on African American state
  legislators and on other state government leaders
  they called carpetbaggers.
• Carpetbaggers were people from the North who
  moved to the South to take part in Reconstruction
  governments. They were called carpetbaggers
  because many of them carried their belongings in
  suitcases made of carpet. Some of them truly
  wanted to help, but others were looking for a
  chance for personal gain.

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Carpetbaggers - Northerners that moved to the
South during Reconstruction looking for wealth,
land, or to help the freedmen.
A Thomas Nast cartoon from 1872 makes fun of a
Northern politician. It shows him as a
carpetbagger, or a Northerner who moved to the
South with only what he could carry in a small
bag. It is a caricature of Carl Schurz carrying
bags that are labeled, "carpet bag from Wisconsin
to Missouri" and "carpet bagger South." Nast
criticized Schurz for his sympathetic policies
relating to the treatment of ex-Confederates.
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Carpetbaggers

• To rebuild bridges, buildings, and railroads,
  the Souths Reconstruction governments had to
  increase taxes. White Southerners blamed the
  higher taxes on African American state
  legislators and on other state government leaders
  they called carpetbaggers.
• Carpetbaggers were people from the North who
  moved to the South to take part in Reconstruction
  governments. They were called carpetbaggers
  because many of them carried their belongings in
  suitcases made of carpet. Some of them truly
  wanted to help, but others were looking for a
  chance for personal gain.

Big Ideas

• Carpetbaggers
• Came from North to take part in Reconstruction
  governments
• Resented by Southerners
• Took advantage of South

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A Changing Society

• Many white Southerners did not want their way
  of life to change. Burdened by heavy taxes and a
  changing society, they began to organize to
  regain their authority. One way to do this was
  to control the way people voted.

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Limits on Voting

• Over time, white Southerners once again took
  control of their state governments and society.
  Despite the Fifteenth Amendment, new state laws
  were passed that made it very difficult, if not
  impossible, for African Americans to vote.
  African Americans were also required to go to
  separate schools and churches and to sit in
  separate railroad cars. These laws led to
  segregation, or the practice of people in
  separate groups based on their race or culture.

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Limits on Voting

• Over time, white Southerners once again took
  control of their state governments and society.
  Despite the Fifteenth Amendment, new state laws
  were passed that made it very difficult, if not
  impossible, for African Americans to vote.
  African Americans were also required to go to
  separate schools and churches and to sit in
  separate railroad cars. These laws led to
  segregation, or the practice of people in
  separate groups based on their race or culture.

Big Ideas

• Southern states pass laws to prevent African
  Americans from voting.

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Reconstruction Ends!

• Reconstruction ended with the election of
  1876. In 1877 the last of the Union troops left
  the South. African Americans in the South were
  once again being denied the rights and freedoms
  that that they had won following the war. By
  1900 most African Americans were not allowed to
  vote, and few held public office.

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Reconstruction Ends!
Big Ideas

• Reconstruction ended with the election of
  1876. In 1877 the last of the Union troops left
  the South. African Americans in the South were
  once again being denied the rights and freedoms
  that that they had won following the war. By
  1900 most African Americans were not allowed to
  vote, and few held public office.

• Reconstruction ends with Election of 1876
• Federal troops leave South
• Black Codes restrict African American rights

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