Black Codes After Emancipation (1865-1866)

Before Reconstruction initiated in 1865, slaves were treated very austerely- jobs and rules. However, this changed after the Union victory in the Civil War. This gave some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the south brought a set of substantial challenges. In 1865, a period of Presidential Reconstruction began because President Lincoln was assassinated. This meant that all of Lincolns plans for reconstruction had to fall to his successor- Andrew Johnson. Black codes were then passed in Legislation controlling the work and behavior of former slaves and African Americans. These codes were not liked by many

     Imagine yourself wrongly convicted of a crime. You spent years in jail awaiting your release date. It finally comes, and when they let you out, they slap handcuffs around your wrists and tell you every single action you do. In a nutshell, that’s how the Black Codes worked. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes.

After the Civil War, the southern whites were extremely resentful and bitter. In 1865 the southern states began issuing “black codes,” which were laws made subsequent to the Civil War that had the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks. This term tends to refer to the legislation passed by southern states to control the labor, migration, and other activities of newly freed slaves. When the slaves were freed, they still had

Slavery was not a word that was unknown in the United States of America; the word was at the tip of almost everyone’s tongue, only it came with many names. After the civil war, slavery became more pronounced for the black people. The south then thought something ought to be done and passed laws called the black codes which begun the limitation of blacks’ rights and separated them from the whites; white supremacy began. Before, these laws would have been unnecessary because most of the black people were slaves and they were already segregated in public places like schools and theatres. In 1866, Congress did not like this and they responded to these laws by putting a stop to it. Republicans had managed to begin reconstruction on the society and understand the black community. But in 1877 things took a turn for the worse when the Democratic parties recovered control and stopped the progress of reconstruction. This in turn caused the reverse of all the progress made in the past few years to understand the black community; they lost their rights to hold political seats, vote and generally participate as though they were members of the community. Slowly but surely, the south started to restore their racially unfair laws. The aim of the laws? To ensure segregation and alienation of the black community. One of the main powers taken away was the right to vote and they did this by imposing poll taxes, having expensive fees to be paid at the voting booths and

Black Codes were enacted in 1865 and 1866 by new southern state governments. Similar to the Slave Codes that existed before the Civil War, these Black Codes sought to regulate past slaves lives such as prohibiting freed slaves to serve on juries or to testify against a white person in court. Although the Black Codes granted African Americans to possess and sell property and legalized black marriages, interracial marriage between white and black Americans was outlawed. Unfortunately, some states even went further to control the lives of African Americans by limiting their economic freedoms such as, preventing any African Americans from purchasing or renting farmland in the state of Mississippi. As a result of decreeing the Black Codes, a division

In 1865, the American government successfully passed the thirteenth amendment: ending the institution of slavery in America. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The thirteenth amendment opened up economic opportunity for African Americans as slaves were no longer owned by someone else. However, not long after the thirteenth amendment was passed, former slaveholders and southerners created the black codes. Black Codes were a set of laws intended to restrict African American freedoms, causing them to go into low wage labor. A black code passed in the state of South Carolina stated, “To do farm work, a black in South Carolina had to have a written contract, attested to by white witnesses; failure to obtain one before commencing to work was a misdemeanor

From Reconstruction through the end of the 1920s, there were multiple encounters of people from all different types of races that have dramatically changed the face of the United States. Old immigrates, White Anglo Saxton Protestants, were the only people who were thought of as true Americans and not outsiders at the time. The 13th amendment abolished the majority of slavery and African American hoped to be finally freed after years of bondage. However, this is far from the end of their issues and there are many more racial barriers to be crossed from not only African Americans, but also for others coming into the country.

What made me most interested within the Reconstruction Era, was the Black Codes developed by Andrew Johnson. This made me interested was due to the fact that till this point in my life, I thought that Lincoln had truly freed the slaves, however recently I found that this was not true. “Most former Confederates bitterly resented racial integration and the emancipation of the slaves.” I understand that, when someone loses in something huge and significant of a war, there must be terms to be agreed for from the loser which is never a positive thing for the loser, thus for the South it was basically another way of them stripping them of the lifestyle they once had, and the superiority they once had was over. Having

Civil Rights, labor contracts, vagrancy, apprenticeship, courts, crimes, and punishments are policies that the government implement in attempt to uplift southern blacks. These rules bore a remarkable similarity to the antebellum slave codes. Restrictions Under presidential reconstruction, southern states recognized new constitutions and governments, which immediately determined to control the freedom of black through the way of laws called black codes. A reconstruction of Southern society to contain African Americans equally. There were some policies that were most successful in that it restored the United States as a unified nation. In 1877, a former confederate states had drafted new constitutions. For the most part, the North was an industrial

"black codes" were a set of laws passed by former confederate states after civil war during reconstruction. The laws were made in 1865-1866 that act out by the Southern State to give whites power over blacks. These laws were designed to restrict "freed" black's and ensure their availability as a workforce, now that slavery had been abolished. " Black codes" in the antebellum stiffly regulated the hustle and behavior of blacks.

The thirteenth amendment was the first to abolish slavery, or so people say. The thirteenth amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction,” the constitution. This amendment could easily fool people into believing that all was right within the world. However, soon after this amendment was added to the constitution unjust laws started to pop up within the states, “When slavery was legally abolished. A new set of laws called Black Codes emerged to criminalize legal activity for African Americans. Through the enforcement of these laws, acts such as

The Black Codes was masked slavery. Other than some new, small leniencies, Mississippi succeeded in making laws that that still controlled African Americans. These Sections were created for the South to bend the rules by exploiting children. These laws were aimed at minors under the age of 18 that were orphans or whose parents were unable to financially provide for them. At this point, the child would be placed back in the “care” of their former master or mistress. These codes stated that the best interest of the minor was to be protected, that they were to be fed, clothed, treated humanely; taught to read if under the age of fifteen and to receive medical attention when sick. In return, the minor, or apprentice would be bounded by indenture until the age of eighteen for a female and twenty one for a male. It was also acceptable for the former owner to chastise under what was allowed for punishment by the common law. If the child were to escape, it was permitted to place the child in jail if refused to return. That only discharge from a master/mistress would be possible if the courts believed the apprentice had a good cause to quit. Those are just few examples to begin with. These codes essentially worked to separate the races in all aspects of life from children to adults, such as marriage, which would result in life in prison if wedded to a white person. They also were not allowed to own any type of weapon unless they served in the United States military, and were to be fined and possibly imprisoned to even drinking liquor to a level of intoxication. Over all, these are just a few of the examples that were laws to “freed” men to be kept

Between 1660 and 1710 slave codes were enacted and forced nearly all blacks to work as agricultural laborers.  The codes defined slavery as a system that controls black people to take advantage of their labor.  By the year 1700, the system spread to the southern colonies in America and slaves and other blacks were legally equivalent to domestic animals.

Slaves did not accept their fate without a protest, they did not agree with the Slave Codes. It was this fear of rebellion that led each colony to pass a series of laws restricting slaves' behaviors, these became known as Slave Codes. Since the Slave Codes were brought on by the fear of Blacks, the most cruel and inhumane punishments were kept for those who tried to reject slavery. Attempting to raise an uprising meant definite torture and death, but capital punishment was used for even minor acts of refusal, such as destroying any stack of rice, corn or other grain or setting fire to any tar kiln, barrels of pitch, tar, turpentine or rosin. Free Blacks who harbored escapees would be beaten by the slave owner and fined. In the courts if a slave

Black Codes was the south's way for trying to get back slavery. The Black Codes restricted African Americans rights for what they could and couldn’t do restricting their freedom and making them to work for whites still still being paid but at low wages and treated no different from how they were during slavery. The freedmen could not work for themselves only for a white. The Black Codes was the South’s way to try and bring back slavery.