History Cal State LA: Study Guide for Exam 1

Special Order No. 15

  • Land Allocation for Freed Blacks

    • Land along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida was set aside for freed Black people.

    • Included abandoned rice fields and areas up to 30 miles inland.

  • Settlement Rules & Restrictions

    • On designated lands, no white people (except military personnel) were allowed.

    • Freed people would manage their own affairs under U.S. military oversight.

    • Enlistment in the military was encouraged for young and able-bodied Black men.

  • Land Distribution Process

    • Groups of three Black heads of households could apply for land.

    • Land was divided into plots of up to 40 acres per family.

    • The military would protect settlers until they could defend themselves

  • Rights of Enlisted Black Soldiers

    • Black soldiers could claim land for their families, even if serving elsewhere.

    • They could also work in navigation, fishing, or government service without losing land rights.

  • Administration & Legal Titles

    • A general officer (Inspector of Settlements) was assigned to oversee settlements.

    • Each family received a written possessory title for their land.

    • The inspector would resolve disputes and ensure proper organization.

    Due to Reconstruction, economic freedom was denied to ex-slaves.

  • President Andrew Johnson (who supported lenient policies toward the South) rescinded the order in late 1865.

  • He pardoned many ex-Confederates and restored their land, forcing freedmen to return the property or work under exploitative conditions (e.g., sharecropping)

represents a missed opportunity for true racial and economic justice after slavery


Freedmen’s Bureau

The Bureau played a crucial role in assisting formerly enslaved individuals, offering resources such as education, healthcare, and legal support to help them integrate into society. Additionally, the Bureau worked to establish schools and provide job training programs, which were essential for promoting self-sufficiency and economic independence among newly freed individuals. The efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau were instrumental in facilitating the transition from slavery to freedom, as they aimed to create a foundation for lasting social and economic change.

  • problems: limited funding, resistance by white settlers, and political opposition hindered the Bureau's effectiveness in fully achieving its goals.

  • Memphis riots were a series of violent confrontations that erupted in 1866, highlighting the tensions between white residents and the newly freed African American population. These riots resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, as well as significant property damage, serving as a stark reminder of the ongoing racial conflict and the challenges faced by the Freedmen’s Bureau in promoting peace and stability in the post-Civil War South.

  • The violence of the Memphis riots underscored the urgent need for federal intervention to protect the rights of African Americans and maintain order in the region.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

  • dissolved state governments and divided the South into 5 military districts governed by Union generals

  • ensured civil rights for freed blacks and established military oversight to enforce these rights, thereby attempting to secure a more equitable society

  • equal protection of laws

  • guarantee Blacks right to vote

  • Congress led by Radical Republicans respond to Southern reluctant and president Johnson’s pardoning of Confederates

  • if state reenter Union, states need to accept 14 Amendment - right to vote

  • provoked white backlash, which led to KKK


Andrew Carnegie

  • owned a steel company

  • had skilled workers who wanted high wages, but he also sought to keep production costs low by employing non-union labor and minimizing wages, leading to tensions between management and laborers.

  • survival of the fittest - wealthiest must stay up

  • Homestead strike: A violent labor dispute in 1892 at Carnegie's Homestead Steel Works, where workers protested against wage cuts, resulting in a confrontation with private security agents and the Pennsylvania National Guard.

  • corporate had the power to summon the government to aid and proved that they would do anything to suppress worker movements


Chinese Exclusion Act

  • A federal law enacted in 1882 prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States, reflecting the growing anti-Chinese sentiment and racial discrimination prevalent during this period.

  • decreased Chinese population and economic activity

  • children born in US are citizens

  • passed in response to pressure from unions and widespread anti-Chinese sentiment in California 

  • fueled mistreatment of Chinese in America


Knights of Labor

  • goals included securing fair wages, reducing working hours, eliminating child labor, promoting worker cooperatives, and ensuring equal pay for equal work. They sought to replace the wage system with a system of industrial cooperation

    The Knights of Labor advocated for peaceful methods, such as:

    • Organizing all workers into a single labor movement.

    • Establishing cooperative institutions for production and distribution.

    • Using arbitration to resolve disputes instead of strikes.

    • boycotts not strikes

  • Decline after intervention of Pinkerton and Haymarket Affair


Haymarket Affair

  • Context: 1885 iron molders’ strike against McCormick agricultural machine company outside of Chicago

  • native-born and immigrant (German) workers went on strike and shut down the company

  • German radicals believed in distributing wealth and materials from the government to poor, some anarchists wanted a trade union

  • encounters between strikers and policement led to death of one striker when one policeman broke up the strike. Following night, Haymarket square, bomb thrown (no one knows), resulting in police firing indiscriminately into the crowd

  • random civilians arrested, believed it was anarchists’ fault. Blame minority

  • important because it created fear of labor activism and anarchism


Redeemers

  • supremacist groups used legal intimidation to force blacks out of office or voting

  • convince poor white farmers to join Democrats “shouldn’t be paying taxes to blacks”

  • used loopholes in system to terrorize blacks

  • why did they form?

    Former Confederate Leaders & Elite Planters – Many Redeemers were ex-Confederate officials and plantation owners who opposed the federal government's Reconstruction efforts.

  • Southern Democrats – They opposed the Republican-led state governments, which had been installed with the help of freed Black citizens and Northern politicians.

Important to remember because they dismantled reconstruction laws and created Jim Crow Laws


Farmers’ Alliances

  • rural areas ignored in national arena, fewer representatives

  • had to deal with banker and railroad companies that are too powerful to fight

  • sharecroppers and landowners collected harvest and debts

    Alliance:

  • formed by political action

  • to address the growing economic difficulties faced by farmers, including low commodity prices, high railroad freight rates, and heavy debt burdens

    Economic program

  • cooperatives

  • regulate through state legislatures

  • public aid to farmers

Failed because govt. and business too strong


Jim Crow Laws

  • separate but equal

  • states had right to regulate people’s behaviors

  • Plessy v Ferguson: Railroads and local govt. had control over people for “police purposes”

  • justified segregation because it was constitutional

  • White supremacists used Jim Crow laws to maintain political, social, and economic dominance over Black Americans.

  • Black citizens were denied voting rights through literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation tactics.


Booker T. Washington

  • accomodationalist

  • argued that Blacks shouldn’t antagonize whites by seeking immediate social and political equality

  • instead focus on establishing economic base for advancement - Atlanta Compromise

  • focus on economic progress and self-improvement rather than directly challenging segregation and discrimination

  • Result: taught African Americans to accept society and focus on self


Dawes Act

  • forces Native Americans on reservations to accept allotments of agricultural land for themselves and their families

  • claims that every Indian who had been granted an allotment and later left their tribe to live a “civilized life” would be granted US citizenship

  • stipulates that the allotted land would be held in trust by the US government for 25 years before ownership would take effect


Wounded Knee Massacre

  • marked end of Indian wars

  • Lakota were suppressed by being forced to adapt to Western cultures, adopt Christianity, and learn English. Tension increased when forced to move to reservation in South Dakota

  • The Ghost Dance Movement – Many Lakota practiced the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement that aimed to restore their lands, bring back ancestors, and remove white settlers. The U.S. government saw this as a rebellion and sought to suppress it.

  • The Killing of Sitting Bull (December 15, 1890) – The famous Lakota leader Sitting Bull was killed during an arrest attempt, escalating tensions.

  • Disarming the Lakota – The 7th Cavalry tried to disarm a Lakota camp led by Chief Big Foot. A struggle broke out, and U.S. soldiers opened fire, killing unarmed women, children, and elders with rifles and artillery.

U.S. interest in natural resources on the reservation resulted in a series of conflicts that saw the Great Sioux Reservation shrink from 60 million acres to 21.7 million acres by 1877. The General Allotment Act of 1887 further reduced the acreage to a mere 12.7 million, barely 20 percent of the original allotment. The unbroken tract of land now consisted of six separate reservations centered on existing federal agencies