The Reconstruction Period

Lecture II

TN Curriculum Standards:

• 4.0- Understand the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction on U.S. politics.

• Understand the political issues and problems that affected the U.S. during the last half of the 19th century.

• 5.0- Investigate the dynamics of the post-Reconstruction era and the people and events that influenced the country.

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (1865-1969)

Andrew Johnson grew up poor in Raleigh, North

Carolina.

As a boy, he was supposed to work under a tailor but ran

away and later started a business in Greenville, TN.

Having grown up poor, Johnson really had it in for

the wealthy planter class. He rallied for Congress to

provide more land for poor farmers and workers.

When the state of TN decided to secede, Andrew

Johnson decided to remain in his position in the Senate.

This caused Northern Congressmen to respect him and Southerners to hate him

and see him as a traitor.

Black Codes

A Questionable Future

Many slaves had no idea where they would live, what kind of work they would do when they got there, or what rights they were now entitled to.

A Questionable Future

Wage Contracts

The South needed a new system of labor.

Landowners still needed workers and workers needed work, but no one knew how to negotiate the deal since Black labor had always been free.

Landowners hated the idea of these former slaves now being entitled to bargaining rights.Many of the former slaves were just as confused. They still believed that the landowner was responsible for clothing, feeding, and housing them.

Black Codes

• Black Codes were laws that restricted the freedom of former slaves.

• Several states refused to accept the 13th amendment .

• They passed laws to further restrict the freedom of the newly freed slaves.

• The laws were specifically designed to send them back to the plantation. They were called Black Codes.

Examples of Black Codes

• MS created a law that required each person to have written proof of employment.

• People that couldn’t show evidence of employment were forced back to work on a plantation (for free).

• Contracts of employment between former slaves and landowners were written for 1 year.

• Blacks did not have the right to break these contracts.

Black Codes (continued)

• In an effort to get the services of Black women, labor contracts often required the entire family to work (not just the person that signed the agreement.

• If Blacks tried to work jobs outside of farming, they had to pay heavy taxes.

• Some contracts required the Blacks to work from sunup to sundown.

Black Codes

Black Codes (continued)

• They couldn’t leave the plantation without permission.

• A Black man caught preaching without a license would be guilty of committing a criminal offense and sent back to the plantation.

The Freedmen’s Bureau• The Freedmen’s Bureau was an agency created by the

government to help assist both the newly freed slaves and the landowners.

• They distributed food to the poor people in the South (Blacks and Whites) and helped negotiate labor contracts between the freed slaves and the landowners.

• They helped promote education in the South.• During slavery, it wasn’t that slaves were unwilling to learn. There

were laws that made it illegal for them to learn how to read and write.

• The Bureau established schools and provided books and teachers.

Freedmen’s Bureau School

Fisk University- Nashville, TN (established by the Freedmen’s Bureau)

Howard University-Washington, D. C. (established by the Freedmen’s Bureau)

The Freedmen’s Bureau

Political Fiasco• When Johnson took office, he pardoned more than 7000

Southerners and allowed them to return to Congress.• Northern Congressmen knew that they needed to weaken

the political power of the Southern Democrats and increase the power of the Republicans.

• If the Southern Democrats gained strength, White Supremacy would quickly return to Southern parts of the country.

• A group known as Radical Republicans decided that the only way to break the South’s political party was to extend the vote to the newly freed slaves.

Freedom• Freedom completely changed the lives of the

former slaves.• Slaves marriages weren’t legally recognized, so

as soon as the slaves found out that they were free, many chose to have official ceremonies.

• Other slaves left their former plantations in search of relatives who had been sold away years earlier.

Freedom

During slavery, this was a title that they had not been allowed. Even the children of masters called adult slaves by their first names.

They insisted on being called Mr. or Mrs. Instead of by just their first name.

Adults took new last names since their last names were usually the names of their former masters.

40 Acres and a Mule

• Former slaves wanted the same rights as White citizens.

• They wanted their own land to farm.• Sherman (Union Army General) had tried to

set aside land for them in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, but the government later gave the land back to its former owners.

“40 Acres & a mule”

• Sherman’s order required that Black families were to receive 40 acres of land and mule.

• Before the land was taken away, 40,000 freedmen moved onto the land.

• They did not plant crops like rice and cotton as they had during slavery, but they did plant corn and sweet potatoes.

• They worked together to develop the land.• Andrew Johnson quickly reversed this order.

Love Conquers All

• In many cases, the newly freed slaves never found their loved ones.

• There are reports of some freedmen and women having walked over 600 miles in search of loved ones.

• They ran ads in “negro” newspapers trying to find family members that had been sold during slavery.

Too late 4 Love

In many cases, when they found their former wives/husbands, they were

already remarried (having believed that their first spouse was dead).

Blacks began to help themselves

Black schools and colleges were short of funds, but Black churches

began to pool their money together to provide relief.

They helped the needy in their communities.

They formed organizations like the National Negro Business League

to help others who wanted to start their own businesses.

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

• While people in the North loved Grant (he had been a former Union Army General), the people in the South HATED him.

• The planter class and the ex-Confederates temporarily joined sides to rally against Grant.

• They formed the Ku Klux Klan. Their immediate goal was to destroy the Republican Party in the South.

Ku Klux Klan- Pulaski, TN

The Klan initiative

It later added the role of keeping Blacks in subordinate roles.

Whites that sympathized with Blacks faced harsh punishments.

It targeted Blacks that owned land, wealthy Blacks, and teachers

from the North that dared to teach Black children.

The Klan was not against murdering

freedmen just because they could

read and write.

Ku Klux KlanThe Klan murdered

Republican leaders and supporters (both Black

and White).

They hated the Freedmen’s Bureau and

their supporters.

Klan leaders killed thousands of Blacks

during the Reconstruction period.

The Klan’s methods were extremely

effective. In every county where they

were present, voters stayed away from the

polls (voting).

Nathan Bedford Forrest- Grand Wizard

Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park - TN

Grant takes Action

At first, Grant tried to stay out of the South’s problems

with the Klan.

After a while, he realized that it

could no longer be ignored. He asked Congress to pass a tough law against

the Klan.

The new law enabled federal

marshals to arrest thousands of

Klansmen.