Opelousas Massacre Research Paper

After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African

In “Reconstruction Revisited”, Eric Foner reexamines the political, social, and economic experiences of black and white Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. With the help of many historian works, Foner gives equal representation to both sides of the Reconstruction argument.

Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction is a shortened version of his Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877; however, in the shorter version certain broad themes unified the crucial narrative. His first theme is the midst of the black experience, second theme is to trace the ways Southern society as a whole was remodeled, third theme is the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations, and the fourth theme is the emergence during the Civil War and Reconstruction. This narration of Reconstruction begins not in 1865, but with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. This was done to stress the importance of the Proclamation in unifying two major themes, grass-roots black activity and the newly empowered national state and to indicate that Reconstruction was the beginning of a broadened historical process: the adjustment of American society to the end of slavery.

Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction | APNotes.net. (n.d.). APNotes.net :: US History Notes, Guides, Practice Tests. Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://www.apnotes.net/ch22.html

Let’s examine the reality of violence during the Reconstruction Era. In the document, “Southern Horrors- Lynch Laws in All its Phases, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett we see countless examples of the continued violence in the south against African-Americans. The slogan “This is white man’s country and the

Due to the gradual elimination of African-American rights and the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South to enforce such rights, the end of Reconstruction surfaced in 1877. In the eyes of blacks, Reconstruction was a point in history where they could see their civil rights expanding before their very own eyes. On the contrary, whites were deeply disturbed at the way their once “white supremacy” government was dwindling in the rear-view mirror behind them. This fourteen year period known as Reconstruction houses the memories of temporary freedom, scandal, backdoor deals, and the unresolved social, political, and economical issues of our country.

With the era of American Reconstruction in America during the mid to late 1800’s came a sense of opportunity and hope for its people. America was on the move as nation, railroads being built faster than ever and the freedmen looking to find their niche in society. Although in the beginning the government provided support for these new citizens, efforts toward reconstruction faded as the years passed. Those efforts faded to a point where they were all but nonexistent, and with the unwritten Compromise of 1877, what feeble efforts that were left of reconstruction were now all but dead. Politically, reconstruction failed to provide equality by pulling Federal troops from the South, allowing former Confederate officials and slave owners

The Reconstruction time period, 1865 through 1877, was a complex time for America. The southern part of the nation was in need of governmental, economical, and social repair after losing the Civil War. Radical Republicans, Democrats, and newly freed African Americans all were influential in the age of Reconstruction. Historians have struggled to put into words exactly what Reconstruction incorporates and precisely what the motives of the different groups of people were. Renowned American historian, Eric Foner, is a professor at Columbia University. He has written many books concerning the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Eric Foner’s Reconstruction theory

The work of Michael Ross in The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era, helps us understand the history of New Orleans and Reconstruction Era in only 10 chapters of the book. “Ever since Reconstruction ended in 1877, many have questioned whether the North’s effort to bring a new social, economic and political order to the old Confederacy had any real chance for success” (6). During this essay we are going to discuss how Michael Ross helps understand more about the history of New Orleans in terms of the Reconstruction Era.

The era of Reconstruction was a fourteen-year period following the Civil War filled with political and constitutional strife, extreme suffering, grand political ambitions and huge turns in race relations and human rights (Blight 32). During this period, many Americans realized that remembering the war “became, with time, easier than struggling over the enduring ideas for which those battles had been fought” (Blight 31). To people such as Frederick Douglass, a reborn United States could not

As a country, America has gone though many political changes throughout its lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, and all of them have had their own objectives and plans for the future. As history has taken its course, though, almost all of these “revolutionary movements” have come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a violent period that defined the defeated South’s status in the Union and the meaning of freedom for ex-slaves. Though, like many things in life, it did come to an end, and the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure.

Frustrated confederate soldiers made their way back home after losing the war that they had been fighting for four years. These men formed vigilante groups, attacking black people. While soldiers did this, wealthier men who had avoided fighting in the war formed agricultural and police clubs for the same purpose; both groups soon took shape and evolved into one large group, known as the Ku Klux Klan and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest became the first leader, known as the Grand Wizard. The name Ku Klux Klan is derived from the Greek word, Kyklos, meaning circle. The Ku Klux Klan, often shortened to the KKK, was founded in Tennessee in 1866 and grew to be one of the most feared terrorist groups in the United States, before dying off in 1869, but later being revived in 1915 (History.com Staff). The Ku Klux Klan negatively impacted the Reconstruction period through terror, intimidating Republican voters, and killing Republican officials.

(beat) Tonight’s program fuses two genres to tell the true story of Reconstruction. This program is a documentary, based on revisionist historical research. In recent years, historians have expanded the study of Reconstruction to include the beginning of American imperialism, the settling of the West, the Indian Wars, and the creation of the reservation system. Although these topics run concurrently and cross paths with Reconstruction, tonight we will be focusing on the core region of the time period – the occupied and seriously damaged South.

Following the Civil War came a period of regrowth and rebuilding known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction can be broken into different sections and types, one of which is Congressional, or Radical, Reconstruction. There are many scholarly debates about Congressional Reconstruction and its failures, successes, and its overall logistics. Another common debate concerning the Reconstruction period is its purpose and what the intentions of its instigators were. This paper will be discussing an article written by Frederick Douglass entitled Reconstruction. In this article Douglass discusses the Congressional session taking place in 1866. He calls upon the Congressmen to undo the "blunders" of the previous

“ On May, 16 a group of survivors of the horrible Massacre fought for justice.” The fight lasted for fourteen years in which the group who suffered terror were awarded four hundred thousand dollars. The four hundred thousand was split among the group of people who suffered. “The progress of the fight for justice helped boost and establish Democracy for Haiti (“Institute”). This was a very scarce battle fought in court that became a popular case. According to an anonymous author of “The first days of the slave Insurrection” as known as a eyewitnesses, experienced a terrifying moment in the Haiti Genocide. The eyewitness explains how terrifying and scared he was at the moment his house was broken into. He felt the fear of being shot or just dying. Men were around shooting innocent people and taking their lives(“Facing”). Not only did the man fear his life or being shot, he feared being found when he was hiding behind his bed. Not only did the man survive, he was able to tell his story of