Reconstruction

40 Acres and a Mule

Issued by General Sherman via Special Field Order No. 15 after a campaign in Georgia.

Voting Rights Challenges

Literacy tests and poll taxes used to deny suffrage to African Americans.

Lincoln's Assassination

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth; Andrew Johnson succeeded him.

Scallywags

Southern Democrats who supported the Republican Party during Reconstruction.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved South for political gain following the Civil War.

Lincoln’s 10% Plan

Allowed Confederate states to rejoin the Union if 10% swore loyalty to the Union.

Radical Republicans

Led by Thadeus Stevens; created the 13th to 15th Amendments but lost power after Hayes' election.

White Supremacists

Believed in racial superiority and often resorted to violence, exemplified by the Ku Klux Klan.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation after US soldiers left the South.

13th Amendment

Banned slavery in the United States.

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship to all persons born in the US.

15th Amendment

Granted voting rights regardless of race.

Freedmen's Bureau

Provided essential services to African Americans, including education and medical aid.

Sharecropping Contracts

Exploitative agreements trapping illiterate former slaves in debt.

Division of North and South

Centered around issues of slavery and the balance of power in the federal government.

Andrew Johnson’s Policies

Initially opposed big plantation owners but later pardoned them, undermining former slaves' rights.