Reconstruction

Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Reconstruction

Key Events and Concepts

1. 40 Acres and a Mule

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

2. Voting Rights Challenges

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

   • Freed slaves continued to work on plantations post-Civil War.

3. Lincoln’s Assassination

   • Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

   • Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln.

4. Division of North and South

   • Centered around slavery and power balance in the federal government.

5. Political Groups

   • Scallywags: Southern Democrats supporting the Republican Party.

   • Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved South for political gain.

6. Lincoln’s 10% Plan

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

7. Andrew Johnson’s Policies

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

8. Radical Republicans

   • Led by Thadeus Stevens, created the 13th-15th Amendments.

   • Lost power after Rutherford B. Hayes’ controversial election.

9. White Supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan

   • White supremacists believed in racial superiority, often resorting to violence.

   • KKK: A group committing crimes against African Americans.

10. Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes

• Implemented after US soldiers left the South, limiting rights of African Americans.

• Illiterate former slaves were trapped in exploitative sharecropping contracts.

11. 13th-15th Amendments

• 13th: Banned slavery.

• 14th: Granted citizenship to all born in the US.

• 15th: Granted voting rights regardless of race.

12. Freedmen's Bureau

• Provided essential services (clothes, food, shelter, medical aid) to African Americans.

• Aimed to improve education with quality teachers from the North.