Download Reconstruction and The New South

Reconstruction
Presidential Reconstruction Plan
Lincoln’s Plan:
• Southern states to be readmitted ASAP
– Any male who took the Oath of Allegiance
except some Confederate leaders would be
allowed to vote
– When 10% of voters had taken the oath of
loyalty, the state could create a new
government and rejoin the Union
Presidential Plan
• Johnson’s Plan:
• Much like President Lincoln’s plan (Under
pressure from Congress he added more
requirements.)
• Approve the 13th Amendment
• Nullify ordinances of secession
• Promise NOT to repay individuals and
institutions that helped finance the
Confederacy
Congressional Reconstruction
• Take time to punish the southern states and
keep Democrats out of power – Black Codes
demonstrated south not ready to treat slaves
as equals
• All males who took the Oath of Allegiance
except some Confederate leaders could vote
• New state constitution with voting rights for
African Americans
• Ratify 14th and 15th Amendments
What would be done with the freed
slaves?
• Freedmen’s Bureau
– U.S. gov’t established
Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands.
– Designed to help both
freedmen and poor
whites
– Offered clothes, food,
and other necessities.
• Focus on education
– 4000 primary schools
– 64 industrial schools
– 74 teacher-training
institutions
– $4oo,ooo teachertraining centers
• Northerners and
missionary societies
sent both money and
teachers.
Freed slaves in Hilton Head, SC
Important Terms
 Discrimination
 Unfair treatment
because of prejudice
 Black Codes
 Types of employment
 Whipping
 Work periods: sunrise to
sunset, 6 days/week
 Imprisonment of jobless
blacks
 Lower wages
 Not allowed to vote,
serve on a jury, or testify
against whites
Carpetbaggers
Military Districts
• When all Confederate states except
Tennessee refused to ratify the 14th
Amendment, military rule was established
• 1867 – Georgia placed in Military District 3
under General John Pope
African Americans in Politics
1867 First African Americans vote
In 1868 they helped elect:
Republican governor
29 African Americans to Georgia House of
Representatives
3 African Americans to the Georgia Senate
Henry McNeal Turner--one of the first elected to the
Georgia General Assembly
When blacks are refused hotel rooms in Milledgeville,
General Pope moves the convention to Atlanta
Ku Klux Klan
• Formed in 1865 in
Tennessee
• A force in Georgia in
1867
• Terrorized blacks to
prevent them from
voting
– Beatings, whippings,
murders reported
Georgia Act 1869
Law that returned Georgia to military control
Rufus Bullock appointed as provisional
governor
Required the state to ratify the 15th
Amendment
Georgia readmitted to the Union July 1870
Amendments
• 13th = abolished slavery
• 14th = citizenship and protection of the law
• 15th = right to vote
Reconstruction Ends in Georgia
• In 1870, African American representatives
were reseated in the General Assembly.
– They had been removed – Constitution gives
them the right to vote, not hold office
• Again approved 14th Amendment
• Ratified the 15th Amendment
• Democrats retook both houses of the
General Assembly.
– How did this impact the lives of blacks?
Economic Reconstruction
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Sharecroppers pose in a Bulloch County tobacco field in 1949.
The practice of sharecropping, which involved workers raising
crops on someone else's farm in exchange for a portion of the
harvest, developed in the years after the Civil War and
persisted until the mid-twentieth century.
Sharecroppers' Shed
A corn crib and tool shed used by sharecroppers is pictured in
Cobb County, circa 1890. In 1880 sharecroppers worked 32
percent of the farms in Georgia; thirty years later, that percentage
had risen to 37 percent.
Tenant Farming
Workers owned some equipment
and supplies.
Landowners
 Many did not have the money to buy needed
agricultural supplies and equipment.
 Borrowed from banks
 Crops often not worth the amount of the loan +
interest charged
 Bankers expected farmers to grow cotton and
tobacco. (This practice ruined the soil.)
 Went into debt and became poorer over time
Cotton is Still King
• At the end of Reconstruction cotton
was again the most important crop in
Georgia.
• Coastal regions began relying on
other natural resources for economic
progress.
– Savannah becomes shipping capital,
Brunswick is second
Economic Expansion
•
•
•
•
•
Business
Growth of banks
Industry
Railroads
Shipping
Savannah and Brunswick again became
important ports.
Turpentine Still
A turpentine still in Thomas County, pictured circa 1895, distills
turpentine and rosin from the crude gum harvested from pine trees.
The highest grade of turpentine was distilled from longleaf yellow
and slash pine varieties.
Tifton, Thomasville, and Gulf Railroad
• Bystanders greet the arrival of the first
train on the Tifton, Thomasville, and Gulf
Railroad in Thomasville, on July 20, 1900.
Port of Savannah (late 1800s)