Georgia and the American Experience

Chapter 9: 1866-1889Reconstruction and the New South

Study Presentation

Mr. Smith’s Classes

Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction

Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia

Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years

Section 4: The New South

Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction

• ESSENTIAL QUESTION–What were Lincoln’s plans for

rebuilding the South after the Civil War?

Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction

• What words do I need to know? – freedmen–Freedmen’s Bureau–Reconstruction–disfranchise–Thirteenth Amendment–Nullify–assassinated

Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction

• What people do I need to know? –Abraham Lincoln–John Wilkes Booth–Andrew Johnson

Conditions in Georgia at the end of the war:

• farms were in ruins• homes, railways, bridges,roads were

destroyed or in need of repair• not enough food• banks were closed – Confederate money

was worthless• the state owed $20,000,000 in war debt• 25,000 Georgians had died of wounds or

disease – many more were crippled and could not work

Atlanta at the End of the War

The Freedmen• Problems of freedmen (former slaves):

– homeless– hungry– uneducated– free for the 1st time– no property or goods

• Many former slaves feared re-enslavement• Most whites had difficulty treating freeman

as free persons

A Freedmen’s School Run by the American Missionary Association

The Freedmen’s Bureau• Started as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,

and Abandoned Lands by U.S. government in 1865

• Its job was to help freed slaves, former soldiers, and poor whites with basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter

• The purpose shifted to education– Set up 4,000 primary schools

– Started industrial schools for jobs training

– Started teacher-training schools

• Missionaries started schools like Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Clark College

Savannah’s Beach High School began as the Beach Institute, a school built by the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War. This school was also

run by the American Missionary Association.

Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction• Lincoln wanted to rebuild and return the South to

the Union as soon as possible

• “Reconstruction” would have two parts:1.Southerners would be pardoned after taking an oath of

allegiance;

2.When 10% of voters had taken the oath, the state could rejoin the Union and form a state government.

• Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 during a play at Ford’s Theater by actor John Wilkes Booth.

• Vice President Andrew Johnson took over as President.

Ford’s Theater, Washington, DC

Presidential Box, Ford’s Theater

Booth entered the Presidential Box and fired this derringer at point blank range. The bullet entered behind the left ear, tore diagonally through the brain, and lodged behind Lincoln’s right eye.

Lincoln was carried to the Peterson House across the street from the theater, where he died early the next morning.

Booth and his accomplices immediately became the objects of a huge manhunt.

Eight people were convicted for Lincoln’s murder; four received the death sentence.

Mary Surratt became the first woman to be executed by the United States.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln2nd Inaugural Address

Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction

• Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the South was challenged. Some northerners called “Radical Republicans” or “Jacobins” thought the South should be more severely punished.

• The Radical Republicans wanted to make sure the freedmen retained their new rights.

• Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured and imprisoned.

Jefferson Davis was captured in Irwinville, GA.

Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

• In addition to Lincoln’s requirements, President Johnson added a few more. Southern states had to: – approve (ratify) the 13th Amendment (outlawing

slavery);– nullify their ordinances of secession;– promise not to repay money borrowed during

the war.

President Andrew Johnson

Johnson became the first president to be impeached. He avoided conviction by a single vote.

Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia

• ESSENTIAL QUESTION– What changes occurred in Georgia

during Reconstruction?

Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia• What words do I need to know?

–provisional–discrimination–Black Codes–Fourteenth Amendment–carpetbagger–scalawag–Ku Klux Klan

Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia

• What words do I need to know?–suffrage–Georgia Act–Fifteenth Amendment– impeach–sharecropping–credit– tenant farming

Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia

• What people do I need to know?–James Johnson–General John Pope–Henry McNeal Turner

The Constitutional Convention of 1865• President Johnson appointed James

Johnson as Georgia’s provisional Governor.

• Governor Johnson held a Constitutional Convention. The representatives voted to abolish slavery and repeal the ordinance of secession.

• Elections were held in November 1865 for a new legislature.

• The General Assembly voted to extend rights to freedmen.

Black Codes Black Codes were laws passed to keep

freedmen from having the same rights as whites. The Black Codes:

–Didn’t allow blacks the same jobs as whites, the right to vote, the right to marry a white person, jury service, or the right to testify.

–Allowed whipping as punishment, set work hours at sunrise to sunset six days per week, and allowed blacks to be jailed if they didn’t have a job.

Congressional Reconstruction• Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black

Codes, so it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law gave:

– citizenship to all freedmen;

– the federal government power to intervene any time civil rights were taken from freedmen.

• The 14th Amendment was passed granting citizenship to freedmen and required “equal protection under the law.”

Congressional Reconstruction• Congress required southern states to ratify the

14th Amendment.

• Georgia and most of the other southern states refused.

• Congress abolished these states’ governments and put them under military rule.

• Georgia was ruled by General John Pope.

• Pope was required to register all male voters – black and white. These voters would elect new representatives to form a new state government.

Military districts in the South after the Civil War. In which district was Georgia placed?

Constitutional Convention of 1867• Georgia male voters elected delegates to the

convention to create a new state constitution.

• Delegates were carpetbaggers (northerners who had moved south), scalawags (southerners who sided with the Republicans), and blacks.

• Accomplishments of the Convention:– A new constitution ensuring civil rights for all citizens;

– Free public education for all children;

– Women were allowed to control their own property.

• Georgia had satisfied Congress, so General Pope and his troops left the state.

Early African American schools were primarily vocational in nature. In this 1939 photograph, boys at the Woodville School are being trained in agricultural techniques.

African Americans in Politics• The election of 1867 was the first time African

Americans had voted.

• Several African Americans were elected to Georgia’s General Assembly.

• Rev. Henry McNeal Turner was one of the first black men elected in Georgia.

• The African Americans elected to the General Assembly were expelled in 1868.

• It was argued by whites that civil rights laws gave blacks the right to vote but not to be elected.

Ku Klux Klan• Secret organization – originally started in

Pulaski, TN as a social club for men returning from the war.

• Members hid behind robes and masks.

• The group intimidated blacks to keep them from voting.

• As a result, Congress passed “The Georgia Act” and sent troops back to Georgia.

• The act required Georgia to pass the 15th Amendment giving all males the right to vote.

Economic Reconstruction• Without slaves, landowners needed laborers to

work their large farms.

• Two systems emerged: tenant farming and sharecropping.

• Cotton was Georgia’s most important crop.

• Continuous growing of tobacco and cotton ruined the soil on many farms.

• Railroads expanded across the state.

• Savannah and Brunswick became important shipping ports.

• Atlanta began its growth into an important business center.

Sharecropping – a Form of Virtual SlaveryLand, house…………………………..$100.00Draught animal……………………… $ 50.00Tools, seed……………………………$ 50.00 $200.00Value of crop…………………………$600.0050% Share……………………………$300.00Amount owed to landowner….………$200.00Sharecropper’s profit…………………$100.00

“Bad news! The crop only brought $300.00!”Land, house…………………………..$100.00Draught animal……………………… $ 50.00Tools, seed……………………………$ 50.00Amount owed from previous year…… 250.00 $450.00Amount earned by sharecropper: $150.00Amount owed by sharecropper: -$450.00New amount of debt: -$300.00

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/photos.htm

Tenant Farming and Sharecropping

Sharecropping Tenant Farming

Landowner provides a house, land, equipment, animals, fertilizer and seeds.

The landowner issued credit to the worker to buy medicine, food, clothing and other supplies.

The landowner gets a share of the crop and crops to pay any debt owed.

Sharecroppers rarely had any cash.

Landowner provides house and land.

Landowner received a set amount of cash or a portion of the crop at the end of the season.

Tenant farmers usually made a small profit.

The End of Reconstruction• The African Americans who had been

expelled from the General Assembly in 1868 were readmitted by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1870.

• The Assembly approved the 14th and 15th Amendments.

• Georgia was readmitted to the Union, again, ending Reconstruction.

In the presidential election of 1876, neither side won a majority of electoral votes. In exchange for the White House, Republicans would agree to the following:

• To withdraw federal soldiers from their • remaining positions in the South • To enact federal legislation that would spur

industrialization in the South • To appoint Democrats to patronage positions in the

South • To appoint a Democrat to the president’s cabinet.

The Compromise of 1877 would have heavy consequences for African Americans in the South.

Compromise of 1877

Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption

Years• ESSENTIAL QUESTION

– How did Georgians work to improve their state after Reconstruction?

Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption

Years• What words do I need to know?

– redemption–white supremacy–Bourbon Triumvirate–ally– temperance–convict lease system

Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years

• What people do I need to know? –Joseph E. Brown–Alfred H. Colquitt–John B. Gordon–Rebecca Latimer Felton–Tom Watson

The Bourbon Triumvirate

• Democrats controlled Georgia’s government after Reconstruction.

• Powerful Democratic leaders, known as the “Bourbon Triumvirate” were Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon.

• Their goals were:

– expand Georgia’s economy and ties with industries in the North;

– maintain the tradition of white supremacy.

Decline of the Bourbon Triumvirate• “Independent Democrats” criticized the Bourbons

for not attending to the needs of the poor or improve education and working conditions in factories.

• Leaders William and Rebecca Felton worked to improve conditions for poor Georgians using newspapers to highlight problems in the state.

• The convict lease system “rented” prisoners to companies to use as workers. It took many years for the poor conditions the prisoners endured to be brought to light and changed.

Sharecropping, tenant farming, and the convict lease system were all forms of virtual slavery.

Section 4: The New South

• ESSENTIAL QUESTION–What changes occurred to create the

era of the “New South” in Georgia?

Section 4: The New South

• What words do I need to know?–New South–normal school–segregation–Grange–Farmers’ Alliance–co-op

Section 4: The New South

• What people do I need to know?–Henry Grady–Joel Chandler Harris–Sidney Lanier–Charles Henry Smith

The New South Era

• Challengers to the Bourbon Triumvirate wanted Georgia to be more industrialized.

• Henry Grady was a speaker and newspaper editor.

• Grady described Georgia as a place which could have competitive industry and more efficient farming.

• Grady envisioned improved race relations in a “New South” which left its antebellum past behind.

Education in the New South Era• Funding to provide elementary education for all

children in Georgia grew slowly from 1868-1895.

• Teachers were paid a little more than farm hands and had little or no training.

• Normal schools were started to train more teachers.

• The “school year” was only three months long which allowed children to work on farms or in factories.

• The state constitution of 1877 did not allow for school beyond 8th grade and segregated black and white students.

The Arts of the New South Era

• Several Georgians gained fame for their work as writers:

– Joel Chandler Harris’ most famous work was Uncle Remus: His Sayings and Stories;

– Sidney Lanier (“The Marshes of Glen”) was one of the best known poets of his time;

– Charles Henry Smith (“Bill Arp”) wrote satire for newspapers in Georgia.

In the Uncle Remus stories, B’rer Rabbit, although smaller and weaker, always got the best of the fox by outsmarting him.Who did these two characters represent?

Agriculture in the New South Era

• Crop prices declined through the 1870s.

• The Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance started out as social groups but began to reorganize to put pressure on lawmakers to find ways to help farmers.

• Georgia became the first state to have a Department of Agriculture.

• Co-ops allowed farmers to work together to buy goods and equipment at a lower cost.