US History Chapter 5 Vocab

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency created in 1865 to help formerly enslaved people and poor whites by providing food, housing, education, medical care, and legal assistance.

Share cropping

An agricultural system where farmers (often freedmen) worked land owned by someone else and paid rent with a share of their crops. It usually kept farmers trapped in debt.

Crop lien

A credit system where farmers borrowed supplies using future crops as collateral, often leading to long-term debt and poverty.

Black codes

Laws passed in Southern states after the Civil War to restrict the freedom of Black Americans and force them into labor similar to slavery.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

A law that granted citizenship and equal legal rights to all people born in the U.S. (except Native Americans), regardless of race.

Fourteenth Amendment

An amendment that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and guaranteed equal protection under the law.

Reconstruction act

A law that divided the South into military districts and required Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment to rejoin the Union.

Tenure of office Act

A law limiting the president’s power to remove certain government officials without Senate approval

Impeachment

The process by which the House of Representatives formally charges a government official with wrongdoing; the Senate then holds a trial.

fifteenth Amendment

An amendment that prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction, often seeking political or economic opportunities.

Scalawags

Southern whites who supported Reconstruction and the Republican Party after the Civil War.

Klu Klux Klan

A secret terrorist organization that used violence and intimidation to oppose Reconstruction and suppress Black voting rights.

Enforcement Acts

Laws passed to protect African Americans’ voting rights and allow the federal government to intervene against groups like the KKK.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

A law that aimed to guarantee equal access to public accommodations for all races; later ruled unconstitutional.

Redeemers

Southern Democrats who worked to regain political control of Southern states and end Reconstruction.

Bargain if 1877

An informal agreement that ended Reconstruction by removing federal troops from the South in exchange for Rutherford B. Hayes becoming president.