Primary Source Analysis: The New South After The Civil War

After the Civil War, the South was in a state of political turmoil, social chaos, and economic decline. Contrary to popular belief, Northerners did not subject Southerners to unethical or inhumane punishment. The time post Civil War was filled with efforts toward reconstructing the South, yet there is the strong question if there even is a New South. Yes, there was somewhat of a New South economically. No, there was not a New South regarding race relations and social hierarchy. In the 1870’s, the South realized the world still looked at them as the ones who wanted slavery. There was a need to project a new image to the world and to stimulate

During reconstruction, blacks were no longer forced to work as slaves however they still needed to work to support themselves and their families. Not many blacks had skills outside of farming so most worked the lands of the wealthy white landowners but not as slaves. They had the right to do whatever they wanted and the landowners could do nothing about it. Wealthy landowners still needed work hands and blacks needed an income so former slaveholders established the sharecropping system. Land owned by a white person would be farmed by black families and they shared the crop yield. This often resulted in the white person taking more than their share and the black families struggled to support themselves. Sharecropping did little to help economic advancement for blacks and was a way the white man could prevent blacks from making enough money

     After the devastation left from the Civil War, many field owners looked for new ways to replace their former slaves with field hands for farming and production use. From this need for new field hands came sharecroppers, a “response to the destitution and disorganized” agricultural results of the Civil War (Wilson 29). Sharecropping is the working of a piece of land by a tenant in exchange for a portion of the crops that they bring in for their landowners. These farmhands provided their labor, while the landowners provided living accommodations for the worker and his family, along with tools, seeds, fertilizers, and a portion of the crops that they had harvested that season. A sharecropper had “no entitlement

The sharecroppers paid "rent" with a share of the crops that they raised, with roughly one-half of all they produced belonged to the white owner (Ransom and Sutch, 1977). The landowner also advanced money to the farmer to purchase seed and other necessary farming equipment. The problem was the sharecroppers rarely, if ever, made enough money from the sale of their crops to pay back their debt. This often led to what some called "debt peonage," and it effectively bound sharecroppers to the land, and the landowner (Bowles, 2011). This was a veiled form of slavery, much like convict leasing was.

Sharecropping and tenant farming began during the end of the Civil war all through the great depression. Sharecropping is an agreement between a tenant and a landlord in which a tenant farmer is allowed to work and live on a piece of land for free, but in exchange for living there for free, they give the landlord a share of the crop they grow. Sharecropping was mainly big in the southern states where slavery was once legal. The pay for being a tenant farmer was very low and the living itself was not very desirable.

Throughout the 19th century, the distinctions between the North and South in the United States were controversial. Prior to the Civil War, the North consisted of business owners and middle-class men. The South consisted of mostly farmers. The North was industrial, using railroads and factories. The South was agricultural, with mostly farms and plantations. The North paid their labor workers. The South used slaves. Not only did their opposing views on slavery and the separation of the two cultures, tensions arose that eventually led to one of the most gruesome wars in history.

After the slaves were freed in 1863, the South had to make changes to supply labor for the farming. Many shady practices by the white man occurred because of this. Sharecropping and crop liens were developed to keep the black man somewhat under their control. Since freed slaves had no money and no place to live, land holders would allow a tenant to live on their property and worked the land in exchange for a share of the crop produced, also known as sharecropping. The crop lien system was a developed to allow farmers to receive goods such as food, supplies, and seeds to be paid for after the crop was produced. This kept the black man and poor white farmers in a constant form of debt.

When, Moody first got to Madison County in Mississippi she was surprised to see that the Black community vastly outnumbers the white community and many Black people in the county owned large plots of land. She was at first under the impression that this would mean there was less poverty than what she saw in her hometown, however she soon learned that land did not directly relate to prosperity. “I just didn’t see how the Negros in Madison County could be so badly off…as Mrs. Chinn explained that night, the federal government controls cotton by giving each state a certain allotment. Each state decides how much each county gets and each county distributes the allotments to the farmers. It always ends up with the white people getting most of the allotments” (313). Though the action of the state, the opportunity for Black farmers to accumulate was non-existent. Economic prosperity would always favor white people because with economic freedom came power and influence, neither of which Black people were allowed to have in the Jim Crow south.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

Document B talks about how it was also hard for colored farmers to make a living especially after the Civil War. “They had to get the local merchant or someone else to supply the food for the family to eat while the first crop was being made.” (Document B) After the Civil War they didn’t have much land and many became homesteaders who were given 160 acres along with regulations they must follow. Only 40% of the applicants actually completed the process and were given the extra land promised for them completion of 160 acres. However many found it difficult to make profit off such little amount of land during that time, for that was the reason most failed to finish

While both the North and the South relied on intelligence gathering during the Civil War to help with the end result of victory, the Union’s accord to use freed slaves as spies undoubtedly was a decision that pushed the North to victory. By risking their own lives, these brave freed slaves helped to ensure the freedom of so many others. While official records are difficult to come by documenting intricacies, the use of escaped slaves as a primary source of intelligence for the Union is without a doubt a decision that helped the nation finally become one.

After the compromise of 1877 and after slavery was destroyed a new farming style emerged. This was the agricultural ladder. In said ladder were five “steps.” The first step was the landless laborer. Normally these people were freedmen, poor whites, and (sometimes) immigrants who did not have enough money to buy their own farms to operate. Next was the sharecropper; this person was responsible for a crop but would still borrow what they needed from stores on a crop lien basis. This meaning they would earn one third to one half of their designated crops income. The goal of this person was to gain enough to buy a mule and other equipment so that they could move up in the agricultural ladder; which meant becoming the renter. The renter normally

The development of sharecropping was associated with the endless debt cycles that afflicted the entire South well into the twentieth century. The freedmen endured an economic status likened to peonage, (Bowles, 2011) in addition to having their hopes for political and social equality dashed. The entire South suffered, it was the freedmen who paid the highest price. Ignorant and impoverished, they were easy targets for exploitation by landlords (Bowles, 2011) and merchants alike; moreover, their options were limited by the overt racism in the South, legal restrictions and partiality. Sharecropping resulted from the intense explicit or implicit desire of white Southerners to keep blacks subservient to them. African Americans possessed few skills, and those they did possess related almost exclusively to agricultural production; they owned no property but the clothes on their backs; (Bowles, 2011) Many dreamed of "forty acres and a mule" with which to begin life anew as an integrated part of American society and the proprietor of one's own land. Inside of a year, however, a different reality became obvious to most. By 1868, land confiscation and redistribution was not in the realm of American political possibility. Desperation, familiarity with people and surroundings at the old places coupled with reunion of many lost loved ones, as well as the urgings of

In the article, Bound Labor in Southern Agriculture, it is explained that despite the freed slaves, African American planters continued to work under cruel conditions and laws were established among whites that stated that as long as you did not hire

The aftermath of the Civil War shook the nation. A new way of life was beginning for the people of America. A way of life that was beautiful and free to some and absolutely devastating to the rest. The country had changed and nobody did a better job at documenting this change than the authors. The authors used this new world to explore new and unique stories as well as capturing what it was actually like living in the post-Civil War times. This paper will examine post-Civil War Literature and its importance to documenting this period in history.