Emancipation and the Making of Reconstruction

Module 1

Emancipation

January 1, 1863 grants freedom to enslaved people in areas currently under confederate control

13th amendment

outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude

what happened once slavery was outlawed

African American populations moved in masses, changed their names, (added Ms. Miss, Mrs. Mr.), sought to legitimize their marriages and take advantage of education

freedmen’s bureau

governmental organization in existence from 1865-1872

established by federal government to assist formerly enslaved people in their transition to freedom

Gen. Willian Tecumseh Sherman

raises the possibility that freed people will be settled on 40-acre plots, but this never becomes widespread policy. Land was given back to original owners

Andrew Johnson

Abraham Lincoln’s vice president. Replaces him after assassination.

dislike for wealthy land owners

wanted to return the southern states back to the union.

called for restoration vs reconstruction

May Proclamations

goal to restore the states back to the union. Amnesty and reconstruction pardons all confederates with some exceptions. southern states may rejoin the union after rewriting their state constitutions to ban slavery

radical republicans in congress

call for more profound change in southern politics, society, and economics. do not like the may proclamation and wish for more changes/repercussions

black codes

New laws that permit AA from talking, moving, and being truly free

forced freed people to sign yearly contracts to work for whites - those who do not will have their labor sold to highest bidder in attempt to legally enslave blacks

Senator Charles Sumner

Radical Republican

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Republican

14th Amendment

defines all persons born in the US with the exception of Indians as US citizens

Suffrage

the right to vote

Andrew Johnson Impeachment

was to protect the reconstruction movement and failed

15th Amendment

The right of citizens of the US to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Ulysses S Grant

republican

first elected president in which African Americans could vote.

Scalawags

southern white republican

Carpetbaggers

former northern republicans who moved south

sharecropping

started as a compromise between poor farmers and black/white land owners. Farmers agreed to provide a portion of the crop to the landowner at the years end. This was abused due to loan debts

loan debts or debt peonage

a way to imprison farmers onto property as a form of slavery

redemption

ensuring that the political powers within a state are all democrats and not republicans

a campaign of political violence that overthrew reconstruction across the south.

has religious undertones and considered a crusade to save the white south

KKK

terrorist organization which continued public violence to scare African Americans from voting.

formed under the redemption

Liberal Republican Campaign

allowed the southerners to sort out reconstruction without northern and federal involvement due to being tired of fighting the effort on behalf of African Americans.

The shift of priorities among the northern republicans

focused more on business and industrialization

Compromise of 1878

the presidential race of Sam Tilden and Rutherford B Hayes

congress elected Rutherford (republican) and elected democrats for LA, SC, and FL as a compromise to end reconstruction