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Reconstruction Dbq Essay

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In the 20th century, the United States had two great events that brought changes to American society in social, political and economic were the Civil War and Reconstruction. After the end of the Civil War, the slavery was abolished as part of the 13th amendment during the Reconstruction era throughout the United States, however the Southern States continue the hatred against the African American as a result of amounts of factors such as Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, white supremacist violence, and the enforcement of involuntary labor affected in the utmost indignation of the whole history of the United States.

During Reconstruction, a social change left a big impact in the life of American society. The 14th amendment (document 1) was ratified …show more content…

Afterward the emancipation proclamation during the Civil War, The U.S government cause a big problem in the way of the emancipation of the slaves. Frederick Douglass identifies in “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”, 1881 (document 2): “the heads of the freedmen the bitterest hostility of race and class”[...]“they were sent empty-handed, without money, without friends, and without a foot of land to stand upon”. The government didn't gave to the people that have been slaves any piece of money and land. In addition, the unfriendly and hostility treaty which they received remains yet. Furthermore, another political problem came up, the right to vote or the suffrage. A statement of an Afro-American Council, 1898 mentioned: “Since 1868 there has been a steady and persistent determination to eliminate us from the politics of the Southern States” [...] “we insist that restrictions shall apply alike to all citizens of all states”. The suffrage is a federal guaranty which Afro-Americans fought for a long time (3 decades to be exactly). Although, the Southern States persistently wanted to deprive their right to vote. As a result this struggle it will continues for the next decades until a big change will come to put an end of this political …show more content…

The role of African Americans changes in a positive way between 1860 and 1880. According to the illustrations of “A Georgia Plantation” April 1881 adapted in 2001 by McGraw Hill in “The American Record” (document 4) it shows a map of Barrow Plantation between 1860 and 1880, the differences are significant because the houses of tenant farmers who were former slaves of the Barrow family increased in a high number. The meaning of the images is that former slaves could become landlords. Also, this was just the start . Charles Dudley Warner with “The South Revisited”, 1887 (document 5), states “Instead of a South devoted to agriculture and politics, we find a South wide-awake to business… The South is manufacturing a great variety of things needed in the house, on the farm, and in the shops, for home consumption, and already sends to the North and West several manufactured products.” [...] “the more encouraging for the self-sustaining life of the Southern people is the multiplication of small industries in nearly every city I visited…”. According to what Charles Warner talked about, the economic change that had occurred in the South by 1887, literally went a big step forward the increase of more manufactured products and the amount of many new industries, everything

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