Reconstruction Era Vocabulary and Key Concepts

Vocabulary and main conceptual flashcards covering terms, legislative acts, amendments, and outcomes from the Reconstruction Pre-Test.

Sharecropping

A system in which landowners provided farmers with housing and supplies in exchange for a share of the crop raised.

Black codes

Laws that sought to limit the rights of African Americans.

Ku Klux Klan

An organization that used violence to intimidate people.

Wade-Davis Bill

Legislation requiring a majority of a state's prewar voters to swear loyalty to the Union before restoration could begin.

Freedmen's Bureau

An organization that provided food, clothing, healthcare, and education for Southern refugees.

Fifteenth Amendment

A constitutional provision forbidding any state to deny suffrage on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement that led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved South to improve their economic or political situation.

Scalawags

Southerners who joined or supported the Republicans during Reconstruction.

Success of Reconstruction

The introduction of a tax-supported public school system in the South.

Southern Economy at the End of the Civil War

The condition of the South's economy, which had been destroyed by the end of the Civil War.