CHAPTER 5 NOTES

RECONSTRUCTION

SECTION 1

• RECONSTRUCTION-1865-1877. The federal government program to repair the damage to the South after the Civil War.

• South was the worst after the war.

-1 out of 3 men were killed or wounded.

-destroyed factories, farms, and railroads.

Southern Hardships

• Three major groups of people in South.

1. Black southerners- 4 million freed people. Homeless, jobless, and hungry. Some continued working on plantations. Some moved West.

2. Plantation owners- couldn’t afford to hire workers. Had to sell property to cover debt.

3. Poor white southerners-could not find work b/c of job competition. Migrated to Tx and Miss.

Lincoln’s reconstruction plan

1. Offer pardon (official forgiveness) to any Confed. Who would take an oath of allegiance to the Union and accept federal policy on slavery.

2. Denied pardons to Confed. military and govn’t officials.

3. Permitted each state to hold a convention to create a new Constitution after 10% voters swore allegiance.

JOHNSON’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN

Johnson took over as President w/ Lincoln’s assassination.

1. Pardoned southerners who swore allegiance to Union.

2. Each state hold constitutional convention.

3. Required to void secession, abolish slavery, repudiate the debt.

4. Hold elections, join Union.

Freedman’s Bureau

• Created to help black southerners adjust to freedom.

• Clothing, medical supplies, and meals.

• Education.

SECTION 2

• BLACK CODES- laws that restricted freedman’s rights. Curfews, Vagrancy, Labor contracts, land restrictions.

• 14th Amendment – guaranteed citizenship to freed slaves.

• Reconstruction act of 1867(pg. 208)

• President Johnson was impeached. Johnson stayed in office by one vote

politics

• 15TH AMENDMENT- no citizen could be denied the right to vote based on race.

• Black voters went to polls and took offices.

• CARPETBAGGER- Northern republicans that moved South. Wanted to profit from South’s dismay.

• SCALAWAG- white, southern, republican.

SECTION 3 Sharecropping and the Cycle of Debt

1. Poor whites and freedmen have no jobs, no homes, and no money to buy land.

2. Poor whites and freedmen sign contracts to work a landlord’s acreage in exchange for a part of the crop.

3. Landlord keeps track of the money that sharecroppers owe him for housing and food.

4. At harvest time, the sharecropper owes more to the landlord than his share of the crop is worth.

5. Sharecropper cannot leave the farm as long as he is in debt to the landlord.

Tenant Farming

• TENANT FARMERS-did not own the land they farmed. Paid to rent the land.

• Farming changed to CASH CROPS and not food crops. Cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane. Had to import most food.

• Cycle of debt-couldn’t afford to own land.

• Merchants sprang up to supply plantations on credit.

SECTION 4

• 1866 KKK was formed by former Confed. soldiers.

• Wanted to kill all republicans and keep African Americans in submissive roles.

• ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1870-banned the used of terror, force to prevent people from voting. Wiped out KKK for time being.

RECONSTRUCTION ENDS

• Reconstruction ended due to 1. Corruption2. Economy-south in debt.3. Violence4. Democrats returned to power.

Compromise of 1877-The election of 1876. (page 221)