STARTER

1. STARTER Why did the Radicals want to impeach Andrew Johnson? Hint: p.381-382

2. They believed he was obstructing Reconstruction efforts.

3. Reconstructing Society Ch 12 Sect 2 Pg 383

4. Conditions in the Postwar South • South had to physically rebuild the region. • Property values plummeted • Investors in Confederate bonds lost all their money. • Small farms were ruined. • Southerners in every economic class were poorer. • Region’s population was devastated. • 1/5 of the white males were killed.

5. Public Works Programs • Republican gov. built roads, bridges, railroads, orphanages, institutions for the care of the mentally ill and disabled & the first public schools. • Programs were expensive • Few financial resources were available and northerners did not want to invest. • Southern gov. raised taxes furthering the recovery process.

6. Scalawags & Carpetbaggers • Scalawags – white southerners who joined the Republican Party. • Hoped to gain political offices w/ help from African Americans. • The majority were small farmers • Use those offices to enrich themselves. • Carpetbaggers – northerners who moved to the south after the war; had few belongings that could fit in a carpetbag. • Freedman’s Bureau agents, teachers, ministers • Others wanted to buy land or start legitimate businesses. • Some were dishonest business people

7. ACTIVITY P. 385 – Analyze the political cartoon, in groups answer questions 1-2.

8. African American Voters • Made up the largest group of southern Republicans. • Gained voting rights w/ 15th amendment • African Americans registered to vote for the first time. • Eager to exercise their voting rights • 90% of African Americans who could vote voted.

9. Political Differences • Conflicting goals among the Republican Party. • Scalawags did not share the Republican commitment to civil rights & suffrage. • Republican governors began to appoint white Democrats to office to gain white votes. Attempt failed. • Many White Southerners refused to accept blacks’ new status. • African Americans felt betrayed.

10. New-Won Freedoms • Some African Americans were cautious about testing the limits of their freedoms. • African Americans took advantage of being able to go where they wanted. • African Americans were eager to leave the plantations. • Moved to southern cities • 1865-1870 African-American pop. Doubled in ten largest Southern cities.

11. Reunification of Families • Freed African Americans took advantage of their new mobility to find family members. • Freedman’s Bureau worked to reunite families. • Many families were never reunited. • For African-Americans, reconstructing their families was an important part of establishing an identity as a free people.

12. Education • 80% of African Americans could not read or write. • All freed people begin to seek education. • African Americans established schools. With the help of private organizations and churches. • Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia • Whites responded to black schools w/ violence. • By 1877, more than 600,000 African-Americans were enrolled in elementary schools.

13. Churches & Volunteer Groups • African Americans began to found their own churches. • Baptist & Methodist • Services similar to earlier “praise meetings” • Ministers emerged as community leaders. • Established political organizations, fire companies, trade associations, political organizations, and drama groups. • Fostered independence & financial & emotional support for African Americans.

14. Politics & African Americans • Former slaves began to play an active role in political organizations. • African Americans still held a minority of the political offices. • Hiram Revels – first black senator

15. Hiram Revels Hiram R. Revels was born on September 27, 1827, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Revels was a minister who, in 1870, became the first African-American United States senator, representing the state of Mississippi. He served for a year before leaving to become the president of a historically black college. Revels died on January 16, 1901, in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

16. Laws against Segregation • Most states repealed the black codes. • Many anti-segregation laws were not enforced. State orphanages had separate facilities for whites and blacks. • African Americans focused more on bringing up their own communities that on total integration.

17. 40 Acres and a Mule • General Sherman promised freed African Americans who followed his army 40 acres and a mule. • 40,000 settled on 400,000 abandoned or forfeited acres in Georgia and South Carolina. • Former slaves were then evicted from their land by President Johnson. • Few African Americans held the resources to farm successfully. • 1866 congress passed the Homestead Act, 44 million acres, Swampy land and unsuitable for Farming.

18. Restoration of Plantations • Planters feared they would not make a profit when paying laborers. • Former slaveholders resented paying former slaves. • Planters faced labor shortages. • African American women & children refused to work in the fields. • Former planters were determined not to let African Americans get land.

19. Sharecropping and Tenant Farming • Without land freed blacks could not farm. • In exchange for wages, housing, & food freedmen worked in the fields. • Led to sharecropping & tenant farming. • Sharecropping – landowners divided their land & gave each worker a few acres, along w/ seed and tools. • Tenant Farming – rent land for cash from planters.

21. How Landowners in the South Reassert Their Economic Power Paid freedmen low wages Trapped them in the sharecropping and tenant farming cycle of poverty.

22. Cotton No Longer King • Demand for Southern cotton began to drop during the war. • Textile mills and new industry sprang up in the South. (tobacco-product manufacturing) • Agriculture began to diversify.

23. Factors that contributed to the stagnation of the Southern Economy Confederate debts Declining demand and falling prices for cotton. The ongoing impact of Civil War devastation.