SS8H6c

Analyze the impact of Reconstruction on Georgia and other southern states,

emphasizing Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen’s Bureau• Freedmen faced great

hardships: – Homeless– Uneducated– Nothing but the clothes on

their back• Some looked for jobs• Some looked for family

and friends• Some traveled just

because they could

Freedmen’s Bureau

• March 1865 U.S. Government established– Bureau of Refugees– Freedmen– Abandoned Lands

• General Oliver O. Howard was the first commissioner

Freedmen’s BureauOliver O. Howard: Later founded Howard University in Washington D.C.

Freedmen’s Bureau

St. Augustine Freedmen’s Bureau

• Original Purpose:– To help both former slaves

and poor whites cope with everyday problems

– Offered clothing, food, and other necessities

Freedmen’s Bureau

• Change of Focus– Main focus was education• Set up over 4,000 primary schools• 64 industrial schools• 74 teacher-training institutions for young African

Americans in addition to spending over $400,000 to help establish teacher-training centers

One of 3000 schools helped by the BureauBureau spent more than 5 million dollars and by 1865 there were more than 90,000 former slaves enrolled as students in public schools

Freedmen’s Bureau

• Northerners and missionary societies sent both money and teachers

• The American Missionary Association– 1867 sponsored the

chartering of Georgia’s Atlanta University

Freedmen’s Bureau

Clark College• The American Baptist Home

Mission society organized Morehouse College in Augusta– Moved to Atlanta in 1870

• A third Georgia Reconstruction-era school was Clark College in Atlanta, which first opened as a school for children

Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming

Sharecropping• Landowners provided

– House– Farming tools– Animals– Seed and Fertilizer

• Workers agreed to– Give the owner a share of the

harvest

Tenant Farming• Tenants usually owned

– Agricultural equipment– Farm animals (mules)– Seed and Fertilizer

• Tenants agreed to– Pay the landowner a set

amount of cash– OR a share of the crop

Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming

Sharecropping• Until the workers sold their

crop, the owners provided– Food– Medicine– Clothing and other supplies

• Provisions were made at high prices on credit

• Rarely any cash left• Owners often cheated

workers to keep them in debt (vicious cycle)

Tenant Farming• Usually made a small profit

Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming

• Lives on both sides were very hard• Both systems allowed landowners to keep their farms

in operation without having to spend money on labor• Landowners who did not have money to buy seed,

fertilizer, and tools borrowed the money and used the crops to back up the loan– Interest on these loans was often more than the crops

were worth– Bankers expected farmers to grow cotton or tobacco each

year which ruined the soil• Southern Landowners became poorer each year

Reconstruction Plans

Lincoln Plan• “Ten-Percent Plan”:

Reconstruction– 2 step process

• All southerners, except for high-ranking Confederate civil and military leaders, would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance to the United States

• When 10% of the voters in each state had taken the oath, the state would be permitted to form a legal government and rejoin the Union

Congressional Plan• Wade-Davis Bill

– All southerners must take an Ironclad Oath to the United States that they never supported the Confederacy• Lincoln did not sign the bill

Reconstruction Plans

• Lincoln was assassinated before his plan went into effect.

• VP Andrew Johnson (NC) became the 17th President– Appointed James Johnson as Georgia’s provisional

governor• As a congressman, Johnson had opposed secession

Reconstruction Plans

Johnson’s Plan• Those who owned property

worth more than $20,000 or those who had held high civil or military positions had to apply directly to the president for a pardon

• Offered a reward for the arrest of Jefferson Davis– He was captured &

imprisoned

Reconstruction Plans• Problems with President Johnson’s Plan– Fearful that freedmen would be disfranchised– Thought the South deserved a greater punishment

• Johnson’s Adjustments:– Southern states had to approve the 13th

Amendment which made slavery illegal– Southern states had to nullify their ordinance of

secession– Southern states had to promise not to repay the

individuals and institutions that helped finance the Confederacy

Reconstruction Amendments

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT• Continued the work of the

Emancipation Proclamation– It officially abolished slavery

• Passed in January 1865• Ratified in December 1865

– President Johnson made this a requirement for the southern states to rejoin the Union

Reconstruction Amendments

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT• The 13th did not abolish

discrimination and many southern states, including GA, passed the Black Codes

• Granted citizenship to the freedmen and forbade any state from denying anyone the “equal protection of the law”

• Passed June 1866• Ratified July 1868

Reconstruction Amendments

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT• Granted all male citizens

the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

• Passed February 1869• Ratified February 1870

Black Legislators in Georgia• 1867: African Americans voted for the first time

in Georgia• 1867: – African Americans helped elect a Republican governor – 29 African Americans to the Georgia house of

representatives– 3 African Americans to the Georgia senate

• 1868: All African American representatives were expelled – Although the constitution had given them the right to

vote, it did not specifically give them the right to hold political office

Black Legislators in GeorgiaTUNIS G. CAMPBELL, JR.• 8th of 10 children born to free

black parents in NJ• Participated in the Colored

Convention Movement• Commissioned to Port Royals, SC

– Oversee the gathering of former slaves

• Supervised Georgia land resettlements (including Sapelo)

• Registered voters• Justice of the Peace• Delegate to the state

conventional congress• State Senator (Liberty, McIntosh,

Tattnall Counties)

Black Legislators in Georgia

HENRY MCNEAL TURNER• Never a slave, SC

– paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner

• Church organizer & missionary for the African American Methodist Episcopal Church– Later ranked as a bishop

• State legislator, Macon• Advocate for the back-to-

Africa emigration

Black Legislators in Georgia

• AARON A. BRADLEY– Born in SC– Shoemaker who ran away to the North where he

became a lawyer– Member of the black delegation to the

constitutional convention in Georgia– State Senator (Savannah area)– Rallied for plantation blacks in Savannah to be

given land

Ku Klux Klan• Began in Pulaski, TN 1865 as a social club for returning

soldiers– Quickly changed into a force of terror in Georgia

• Purpose was to keep freedmen from exercising their new civil rights– Keep them from voting which would return control of the

state to the Democrats• Georgia Act, December 1869– Returned Georgia to military control for the 3rd time.

General Alfred Terry became Georgia’s new military commander, and Rufus Bullock became the provisional governor