The time after the Civil War is known as Reconstruction, a time period where America was trying to rebuild the country after the harsh ending of the war. Thousands of slaves had been released, searching for jobs and new opportunities, and many southerners were against the changes being made. The goal of Reconstruction was to have the country rebuilt and to establish unity, however that was not the case. Reconstruction did not provide freedom for African Americans due to the amount of racism prevailing in the country, political tensions, and the inability to work for themselves. Racism had been an ongoing issue within the south, even though it had only a small contribution to the Civil War. There were still many white southerners who were still angry over their …show more content…
Sharecropping is a cycle in which the former slave would have to use a landowner's land to grow crops, which leads to a continuous cycle of debt. In a diagram displaying the process of sharecropping, it is shown that the sharecropper was taken advantage of by the landowner, as they had to buy tools and clothing from the landowner, and after their harvest they were wonky guaranteed half of the earnings, minus the debt the sharecropper has for the year. It also shows how the sharecropper would have to pay more than what they profited from, forcing the sharecropper to attempt to increase the share of the following year's crop (Document B). This cycle lead to an extreme amount of debt that would be carried down into future generations, dooming their entire family. It provided no benefit for the sharecroppers, as they rarely were able to pay off their debt. This endless cycle of debt dismissed African American freedom, as the former slaves could not leave the land and had their future children doomed into sharecropping as
After the Union won the Civil War, the United States went into seven year period, known as Reconstruction. The goal of Reconstruction was to rejoin all the states into the Union and to help rebuild the South. While the goal of Reconstruction was rightful, the final result of the period didn’t do much to put America into a better place than where it was before the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the radical northern abolitionists was pushing to make America a country where everyone was equal, and granting every citizen, regardless of their ancestry. The Northerns tried to make everyone equal members of society and give each and every one of them a voice in their own government.
The lives of African Americans were constantly disturbed, violated, and dismissed. Denying
The period after the Civil War was thought to bring complete peace and better qualities to the United States. Little was known that the Reconstruction period would bring several negative and positive impacts to America, dealing with issues from slavery, presidential quarrels, the assassination of Lincoln, and many more aspects. The Reconstruction era is a part of United States history that until this day still comes into play in various aspects. The Reconstruction period brought difficulties to the slaves who were freed from the Civil War. The “Freedmen”, as they were called, had no education, food or water.
In 1865 The Civil War, a war which lasted four years, completely destroyed the South, and freed about 4 million slaves had finally ended. The period of Reconstruction was when the South rebuilt what had been destroyed and the South and North joined back together. The Nation also had to solve many problems including how the recently freed slaves would fit into society. Reconstruction was a failure for the Freedmen because Freedmen got to peruse their rights and not live in fear for minimal time, until President Grant did not run again for president and Rutherford Hayes became president leading to the former groups who terrorized the Freedmen to reorganize. In addition, a start to segregation began due to troops being removed from the South
Maceo Cardinale Kwik Reconstruction Reconstruction was the twelve years after the civil war. Those twelve years were full of readjustment fixing the ruin the United States had fallen into. The problems that had the United states in disarray were how to, rebuild the South, reunite the states, and ensure the rights and protection of the newly freed African Americans. The civil war left the South in shambles, and newly freed slaves struggled to adjust to their new freedom. Most Southerners hated reconstruction and everything else about the North.
The idea of sharecropping, where former slaves took out a loan and a land from their former masters, required that the masters would still receive some of the profits of their farm until they paid their debt. Abbot had a story about his time sharecropping; their families entire stock was burned, so, as Abbot puts it, his former master “had to take our land back and sell it to make up for the four or five hundred bales of cotton that got burned up” (Abbot). He continues by commenting that “we stayed on and sharecropped with him” (Abbot). Silas Abbot’s story is one that many families can relate to. As it has done here, sharecropping is generally an endless cycle of debt, all leading to a massive profit for the former master.
The reason as to why dealing with the southern states while they are rejoining the United States was an issue was because of the disagreement between the political parties. For example, the radical republicans
The Civil War was perhaps the deadliest war in American history, with roughly 600,000 casualties between the Northern and Southern states. The land was left in utter destruction, and the economy was weakened by the expensive war costs. Though the Southern states were admitted back into the Union, tensions between the former Confederate States and the Union states still existed. Upon the war’s end, slaves were freed, and granted the right to the pursuit of happiness and to vote. However, Reconstruction can be considered a failure since it isn 't until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s that these rights are actually protected, and southern and northern states are properly assimilated.
The radical Republicans of that time were not silent against the racist acts. Their initiatives ultimately led to the Congressional Reconstruction, which gave black men the right to vote. But when it came to establishing labor rights, they were not as vocal since the north was in need of cheap labor as well. Thus, the struggles for economic justice always remained unanswered. Often the laborers were prevented from being part of unions that ensured their wages.
At the end of the Civil War between the North and South arose the Reconstruction era. This was a time period of the late 1800s where the united states, specifically the North started to attempt the rebuilding of the South. Abolitionists were eager to see the end of slavery and Lincoln attempted to end slavery. President Lincoln attempted to put in place the Emancipation Proclamation which stated all slaves in confederate states would be free. This was to weaken the southern states; except, the confederate states did not obey.
The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).
Once African Americans were sent off with their freedom, former slaves were left on their own with little more then what they were allowed to take. Due to the racist attitudes that were rampant in the South, it was nearly impossible to find anything but low paying, unskilled jobs for anyone who wasn’t white. Because blacks needed work and plantation owners had vacant land an arrangement was placed in order to meet a questionably mutual benefit, sharecropping. Sharecropping was an agreement between former slave and former slave owners; that in exchange for a share of land and shelter, at a very high rate of interest, the landowner would receive a portion of the harvest made by his land. Although this was a system that functioned for a short time when it was most needed, the high interest rates thrown to the former slaves that suffered from them made the debt nearly impossible to repay, yet again leaving the African Americans under control of the white race.
The American Civil War that was started due to the controversy over slavery in 1861, was won by The Union supported by President Lincoln against the Confederate states. President Lincoln’s original goal during the civil war was to reunify the nation as quickly as possible and help both sides come to an understanding. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the newly formed United States’ reconstruction era began. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by the Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. The Union’s victory in the Civil War had given African Americans a new sense of hope, devastated the southern economy, and eased the history of disunity in American political life.
Sharecropping becomes a minute step up from slavery when the fact that the workers rarely were paid if at all, that due to their debts, workers never owned their own land so they couldn’t support themselves, and that this practice
The government created a system to control the enslaved population. Several thousands of enslaved were being bought and