Reconstruction Key Terms

Black Codes: Southern laws maintaining White supremacy, aimed to keep freed people impoverished.

Carpetbagger: Northerners in the South during Reconstruction, often seen as opportunists.

Compromise of 1877: Hayes became president, federal troops left the South.

Crop-Lien System: Store credit for farmers, repaid with future crops.

Freedmen’s Bureau: Eased Black people’s transition from slavery to freedom.

Ironclad Oath: Required voters to swear they never supported the Confederacy.

Ku Klux Klan: White vigilante group using violence to stop Reconstruction.

Radical Republicans: Advocated harsher punishments for Confederate states.

Reconstruction: Integration of Southern states back into the Union (1865-1877).

Redeemers: Southern White people reversing Reconstruction gains.

Scalawags: Southern White people supporting Reconstruction.

Sharecropping: Rent paid with crops grown on the land.

Ten Percent Plan: Lincoln’s plan requiring 10% oath of allegiance.

Union Leagues: Pro-Union groups, political centers for Black people.