Georgia Studies

Georgia in a Divided Nation

Reconstruction

Study Presentation

ReconstructionSSH86: The student will analyze the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Georgia.

c. Analyze the impact of Reconstruction on Georgia and other southern states, emphasizing Freedmen’s Bureau; sharecropping and tenant farming; Reconstruction plans; 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution; Henry McNeal Turner and black legislators; and the Ku Klux Klan.

• Essential Question– How did political action and social reaction

change the southern culture after the Civil War?

Conditions in Georgia (and the South) at the end of the war:

• Farms were in ruins; not enough food• Homes, railways, bridges, roads were

destroyed or in need of repair• 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

re·con·struc·tion

Again Together,with

To build An act or process

re·con·struc·tion

the action or process of building something again

reconstruction

refers to the period in United States history immediately following the Civil War in which the federal government set the conditions that would allow the rebellious Southern states back into the Union.

Freed Slaves (Freedmen)• Problems of freedmen (former slaves):

– Homeless– Hungry – Not enough food– Uneducated– Free for the 1st time– No property or goods; many freedmen began working

in sharecropping or tenant farming to survive

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

free persons since they had previously been slaves and were treated as property

Economic Reconstruction: Sharecropping

• Workers who had nothing but their labor to offer often resorted to sharecropping.

• Under this system, the landowner provided land, a house, farming tools and animals, seed, and fertilizer.

• The workers agreed to give the owner a share of the harvest.

• Until the workers sold their crops, the owners often let them have food, medicine, clothing, and other supplies at high prices on credit.

Economic Reconstruction: Sharecropping

• For many, this credit was their undoing.• After selling the harvested cotton and paying the

bills, the typical sharecropper had little, if any, cash left.

• Because few sharecroppers could read or count, the planter or the store owner could easily cheat them, and many did.

• Year after year, sharecroppers were in debt.• There was little hope they could ever save

enough money to buy their own land or equipment.

Economic Reconstruction: Tenant Farming

• Tenant Farming was similar to sharecropping.

• The main difference was that tenants usually owned agricultural equipment and farm animals, such as mules.

• They also bought their own seed and fertilizer.

Economic Reconstruction:Tenant Farming

• Tenants worked the owner’s land using their own equipment and supplies.

• At the end of the year, they either paid the land owner a set amount of cash, or gave the agreed upon share of the crop.

• Tenant farmers owned more than sharecroppers, and they usually made a small profit for working the land.

Sharecropping and Tenant Farming

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.

A Freedman’s Work Contract:State of South Carolina, Darlington District

• Articles of AgreementThis agreement entered into between Mrs. Adele Allston Exect of the one part, and the Freedmen and Women of The Upper Quarters plantation of the other part Witnesseth:

That the latter agree, for the present year, to reside upon and devote their labor to the cultivation of the Plantation of the former. And they further agree, that they will in all respects, conform to such reasonable and necessary plantation rules and regulations as Mrs. Allston’s agent may prescribe; that they will not keep any gun, pistol, or other offensive weapon, or leave the plantation without permission from their employer; that in all things connected with their duties as laborers on said plantation, they will yield prompt obedience to all orders from Mrs. Allston or his {sic} agent; that they will be orderly and quiet in their conduct, avoiding drunkenness and other gross vices; that they will not misuse any of the Plantation Tools, or Agricultural Implements, or any Animals entrusted to their care, or any Boats, Flats, Carts or Wagons; that they will give up at the expiration of this Contract, all Tools & c., belonging to the Plantation, and in case any property, of any description belonging to the Plantation shall be willfully or through negligence destroyed or injured, the value of the Articles so destroyed, shall be deducted from the portion of the Crops which the person or persons, so offending, shall be entitled to receive under this Contract.

Any deviations from the condition of the foregoing Contract may, upon sufficient proof, be punished with dismissal from the Plantation, or in such other manner as may be determined by the Provost Court; and the person or persons so dismissed, shall forfeit the whole, or a part of his, her, or their portion of the crop, as the Court may decide.

In consideration of the foregoing Services duly performed, Mrs. Allston agrees, after deducting Seventy five bushels of Corn for each work Animal, exclusively used in cultivating the crops for the present year; to turn over to the said Freedmen and Women, one half of the remaining Corn, Peas, Potatoes, made this season. He {sic} further agrees to furnish the usual rations until the Contract is performed.

All Cotton Seed Produced on the Plantation is to be reserved for the use of the Plantation. The Freedmen, Women and Children are to be treated in a manner consistent with their freedom, Necessary medical attention will be furnished as heretofore.

Any deviation from the conditions of this Contract upon the part of the said Mrs. Allston or her Agent or Agents shall be punished in such a manner as may be determined by a Provost Court, or a Military Commission. This agreement to continue till the first day of January 1866.

Witness our hand at The Upper Quarters this 28th day of July 1865.

A Freedman’s Work Contract: Questions

1. How different is this from slavery? __________

_____________________________________

2. As a freedman or freedwoman, would you have signed such an agreement? __________

_____________________________________

3. Why or why not? _______________________

_____________________________________

4. What options did you have? ______________

_____________________________________

Economic Reconstruction: Landowners

• On the surface, it seemed that landowners who used tenants and sharecroppers to work their land made a profit while taking few risks.

• However, many owners who did not have enough money to buy the seed, fertilizer, and tools needed by sharecroppers would mortgage crops before they were planted.

Economic Reconstruction: Landowners

• Interest on such loans was often more than the crops were worth.

• Because bankers expected farmers to grow cotton or tobacco in the same place year after year, much of the soil was ruined.

• In time, many landowners in the South became bankrupt.

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

and Abandoned Lands by U.S. government in 1865

• Its purpose was to help freed slaves and poor whites with the 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 to give freedmen opportunities at higher education

Reconstruction Plans• 1. Presidential Plans

– Lincoln– Johnson

• 2. Congressional Reconstruction• 3. Military Reconstruction

Reconstruction Plans:Presidential Plan

• Lincoln had been planning reconstruction since 1863. He 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 on April 15,1865 during a play at Ford’s Theater by actor John Wilkes Booth. This was only 6 days after end of war.

• Vice President Andrew Johnson took over as President.

• Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the south was challenged. Some northerners called “Radical Republicans” 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.

Reconstruction Plans:Presidential Plan (Cont.)

• 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 from institutions and individuals who funded the Confederacy during the war.

Reconstruction Plans:Presidential Plan

They had a Constitutional Convention! • President Johnson appointed James Johnson as

Georgia’s provisional Governor.

• The representatives voted to abolish slavery (ratified the 13th Amendment) & repealed the ordinance of secession.

• Did not change the constitution much more than this.

• Georgia was readmitted to the Union in December 1865.

So what did GEORGIA do?

Alexander Stephens

Confederate States of America Vice President!!

Hershel Johnson

Confederate States of America Senator!!

How do you think this went over?

Who did Georgian’s elect to represent them in the Senate?

WHAT WERE BLACK CODES?RULES AND LAWS LIMITING THE FREEDOM OF BLACKS

IN THE SOUTH• RACIAL SEGREGATION (SEPARATION OF THE RACES)• “PERSONS OF COLOR” COULD NOT VOTE• COULD NOT HOLD OFFICE (MAYOR, CONGRESSMAN,

SENATOR, JUDGE, SHERIFF, ETC…)• HAD TO OBEY CURFEWS• COULD NOT SERVE ON JURIES• COULD NOT TESTIFY AGAINST WHITES IN COURT• ARRESTED FOR NOT HAVING A JOB• FORCED TO WORK ON ROAD CREWS OR FARMS

UNTIL FINES PAID

Radical Republicans

• The Radical Republicans were a group in Congress who wanted to punish the South for the Civil War.

• They believed that Johnson’s plan to allow southern states to re-enter the Union was too weak and was not punitive enough.

• The Radical Republicans filed articles of impeachment against President Johnson.

• Impeachment means to seek removal from office.• Johnson was impeached in one house of the Congress.• He lost virtually all of his power because of the

impeachment proceedings.

Congressional Reconstruction1866 - 1867

• Congress 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.”

Southern Response to Congressional Reconstruction

• Southern states refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.

• Because of the refusal to ratify the 14th Amendment, the southern states were placed under martial law.

• Congress divided the southern states into five military districts and appointed an army general to govern each of them.

• Georgia, Alabama, and Florida were in the 3rd military district governed by General John Pope.

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.

Henry McNeal Turner and Black Legislators

• The election of 1867 was the first time African Americans in Georgia were able to vote.

• Several African Americans were elected to Georgia’s General Assembly (Legislative Branch).

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

• The African Americans elected to the General Assembly were expelled (kicked out of office) in 1868.

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

The Ku Klux Klan

• The Klan was one of several organizations that tried to keep blacks from exercising their civil rights.

• The Klan began in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865.• Through violence and terror, the Klan kept

blacks from voting or taking part in government.• The Klan became a secret underground society

when Congress passed the Force Act of 1870.• The Force Act was designed to stop the activity

of the K.K.K.

Phase III:Return to Military Rule

• Because of all of the Klan violence in the southern states (particularly Georgia), the southern states were placed under military rule for a second time.

• Georgia was placed under military rule for a second time when Congress passed the Georgia Act in December of 1869.

• The Georgia Act also declared that Georgia would have to ratify the 15th Amendment before it could be re-admitted into the Union.

• The 15th Amendment said that the right of citizens of the U.S. to vote shall not be denied on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.

The End of Reconstruction

• Georgia was readmitted to the Union in 1870 after they:

• Ruled that blacks were eligible to hold office

• Reseated the expelled African American representatives

• Approved 14th amendment• Ratified 15th amendment