CW1 – p391 Vocab

End of Slavery

• End of slavery meant the end of the love and loyalty of slaves for their masters

• Slaves wanted: independence, family and land.

• The government wanted to help them achieve this goal

• Overtime however, slaves were forced into new dependent labor.

Differing Reactions

• Many blacks were quick to inform whites that their loyalty was not true from the beginning.

• Some blacks feared freedom.

• Slave owners gathered slaves to inform them that they were free, some died from the stress of the change.

• As soon as the war was over and slavery ended, blacks in the south began to look for family members that were sold off.

• Ads appeared in papers looking for loved ones

• Some walked hundreds of miles in search of families

• Some found their familied and had joyous reunions

Reuniting Black Families

• Every American wanted the security of owning their own land, freed blacks were no different.

• General Sherman issued Special Order #15 to reserve land in S Carolina and Georgia for freedmen.

• In Port Royal, SC, white slave owners had fled in 1862. Blacks took over the farms and worked the land for 3 years, the gov’t saw fit to give them title to the land.

Land

• 1865, the government created an organization to help the freedmen transition to freedom

• The need for assistance was desperate.• Established camps, fed the hungry, cared for orphans• Big issue was Johnson was now president and was returning the

land to the white owners.• Debate was on: white owners v freedmen over the ownership of

land.• Most freedmen were forced off the land.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Sharecropping

• Southern Homestead Act attempted to reserve land for freedmen but the land was terrible and the Act failed.

• By 1866, the Bureau began to force freedmen to sign contracts with the original white landowners.

• If they refused, they could be arrested

• Typically very unequal terms.

• Instead of gangs, freedmen insisted on working on family plots.

• By the 1870s this system dominated the south.

• Most of the time, there were no wages, only an exchange of the crops.

• Frequently, black families were cheated out of their part.