Reconstruction Era Vocab

DCAH

13th Amendment

Abolishes slavery throughout the country

14th Amendment

Gave citizenship to the freed slaves

15th Amendment

Gave the former slaves the right to vote

Black Codes

Various racially discriminatory laws that were passed in 1865 and 1866 in states that had been part of the Confederate States of America and that enacted in order to maintain white supremacy after the formal abolition of slavery at the end of the American

Ulysses S. Grant

In 1865, as commanding general, _______ led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. As an American hero, _____ was later elected the 18th President of the United States (1869-1877), working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery.

Freedmen’s Bureau

On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “An Act to establish a ___ for the Relief of___________ and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.

American Equal Rights Association

Organization that, from 1866 to 1869, worked to “secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex.”

Suffrage

Right to vote

Ku Klux Klan

Either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present

Sharecropping

A system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities.

Redeemers

In United States history, the ____ were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War. ______ were the Southern wing of the Democratic Party. They sought to regain their political power and enforce white supremacy.

Compromise of 1877

an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election where Hayes agreed to pull Federal troops out of the South and marked the end of the Reconstruction era.

William T. Sherman

A Union general during the Civil War, playing a crucial role in the victory over the Confederate States and becoming one of the most famous military leaders in U.S. history. He was one of the commanders of Northern troops in the South during Reconstruction.

Analyze

to break into smaller components for the purpose of study or examination; to pull apart

Determine

To conclude after reasoning; to figure out

Evidence

facts or information used as support for whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Reconstruction

The effort to restore southern states to the Union and to redefine African-Americans’ place in American society

Depression of 1873

The ____ of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the ___ started two decades of stagnation known as the “Long Depression” that weakened the country’s economic leadership. In the United States, the ____ was known as the “Great Depression” until the events of 1929 and early 1930s set a new standard.

Citation

The exact location of a quotation or reference from text brought forward as support.

Emphasize

To lay stress upon