Ch. 15 Reconstruction 1865-1877

pg. 557-570

Special Field Order 15

Ordered by Willian T. Sherman that took the Sea Islands and a great part of South Carolina and Georgia to have black families settle there with 40 acres and a (worn down) mule (that the Union army couldn’t use anymore).

Landownership

This was one of the important principles of what was considered freedom to the newly freed enslaved peoples (and those people of rural communities) during Reconstruction. It’s also what was considered to be liberty to many throughout history as well.

“Joint heirs”

Some free enslaved peoples believed themselves as this term, where through their unpaid labor, they owned right to the land of the plantation owners, and would occupy land as their own or homes on that land.

Freedom’s meaning to former enslaved peoples

Self-ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic autonomy.

Confederate Deaths

260,000 men

Free labor and the good society

Republican North’s idea of what freedom should look like. Antebellum principle.

Freedmen’s Bureau

1865-1870 organization established by Congress to enforce the liberties and protect the legal rights of the former enslaved person. Helped former enslaved peoples with education, jobs, health care, and landowning.

Labor Systems

Task system (from rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia). Wage labor (sugar plantations of southern Louisiana). Sharecropping (Emerged in Virginia and North Carolina in Tobacco and the Cotton Belt).

Sharecropping

Landless workers, often former enslaved peoples, farmed land in exchange for farm supplies and a share of the crop. Economic opportunities were low due to world market’s price of farm products prolonged decline.

Crop lien

Credit extended from merchants to tenants based on their future crops. Due to high interests rates and uncertainties of farming (meaning no money for tenants), it easily led to inescapable debts.

Emancipation in the Western Hemisphere

Emancipation faced the same issues of land, control of labor, and political power.

Emancipation and the right to vote

Right to vote for former enslaved peoples within two years of the end of slavery was unique to the United States. Emerged from one of the greatest political crises of American history: The battle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction. Changes in the nature of citizenship, structure of constitutional authority, and meaning of American freedom.