The Challenges Of The Reconstruction And The Legacy Of Reconstruction

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.

The reconstruction era was a time that then affected America in positive facets and negative aspects as well, and still affects America today. Thanks to the reconstruction era, there are several implementations that geared the world on the path in which it is today. Had it not been for some of the laws that were set in place African Americans may have not had many of the opportunities that were presented during the reconstruction period, therefore the years of oppression and cruelty might still be present.

America: “The land of the free, and the home of the brave” (Key 7-8). When our forefathers overcame the colonial reign of the British Empire, they formed the United States of America based on the premise of enlightened ideals promoting life, ownership of land, and liberty. But after the revolution, the country’s problems were far from solved. The country’s post-revolution issues sparked a Civil War, which was followed by a reconstruction. In some ways, the Civil War and Reconstruction helped the United States accomplish its original goals, but in many ways, that was not the case.

In 1865 to 1877, a very important part of U.S. history took place, and that was Reconstruction, where every slave was freed, and the whites and black lived equally among one another. It wasn’t an easy breeze and took a long time for whites to accept blacks, and even in current day there are some problem with racism, the main focus was to get rid of slavery, and that was a success.

America was in disarray following the events of the Civil War. Southern economy was in shambles while congress was struggling to find a middle ground between the radical republicans and Lincoln’s lenient policies. Many Southerners faced the aftermath of uprooting their society and their way of life while thousands of newly freed slaves struggled to find a way to support themselves. The country needed a strong leader, however on the 14th of April, 1865 President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington (Farmer). Without the man that had once held the nation together, the country now faced an enormous obstacle; reconstructing American economics, politics and social life.

“In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it is perhaps not surprising that historians turned renewed attention to home-grown American terrorism. Recent books on Reconstruction…have infused their subjects with drama by focusing on violent confrontations,” Eric Foner notes in the introduction of the updated edition to his 1988 publication Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. Up until now, Foner’s revisionist historiography of Reconstruction was the only alternative offered to the Dunning School’s account of the important historical era. In recent years a neo-revisionist interpretation of Reconstruction has emerged in works by a younger generation of historians such as Gregory Downs, Carole Emberton, Hannah Rosen, Megan Kate Nelson and Jim downs. This new scholarship pays close attention to violence, the body, language, and gender—how these important themes directly relate to power, struggle, and political status of freedpeople in the postbellum nation—and either rethink or are completely uninterested in Foner’s revisionist narrative of Reconstruction.

As the great Civil War of 1861 came to a close many in our country knew a plan to rebuild and reconstruct our land and laws was needed. Unfortunately there were many opposing ideas of the correct Reconstruction plan making it difficult for our president to instate something concrete. It is well known that Lincoln, Johnson and the Radical Republicans all had similar but different ideas of what needed to be done. The ordeal was messy and heavily induced by the radical response and assassination of Lincoln, inducting Johnson into office. Many attempts to help those of lower class failed but some came through in the end. The ideas of Reconstruction were long and thought out but by the 1870s waned down to make room for

In Appomattox Court House, 1865, the Civil War concluded, ushering in the Reconstruction Era. Approximately one week after, John Wilkes Booth, a radical southerner, assassinated President Lincoln. The Reconstruction Era, which ended when Rutherford B Hayes ceased its enforcement to keep the peace, was a time for the country to consolidate and forgive the wrongs of the past. This Reconstruction period included many lasting effects on the governing of America. However, it shattered the welfare of southerners, Freedmen, and the general public. Additionally, discrimination ran rampant in the newly reunited country. Reconstruction was successful in the government, but not fiscally nor with public unity.

I agree with the proposition “Reconstruction was a missed opportunity”. The period of Reconstruction was one of the biggest failure in the American history as it had affected the south both physically and economically. The south had their own pride. However, after being defeated by the north their pride was hurt. They viewed north and African- American population as the evil group. The Republican party had succeeded in ending slavery in the United States, but there was still much work to be done as the nation was separated. Lincoln’s assassination was also the main reason to the North’s failure to restore the country. After Lincoln's assassination , Andrew Jackson became the president. Jackson was not nearly as pro-Union as Lincoln, and within a short time Southerners became more active role in government and there was minimal Northern involvement

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.

Sharecropping was the institution in which freed slaves could purchase a plot of land to work themselves and in return they would have to give part of their crop to the landowners. With the Jim Crow Laws, the African Americans were being forced into working for their previous masters again even though they were considered free.

In the land of the free, saying slavery is a dark part of the United States’ history would be an understatement. From the early 1600’s until the abolition of the practice in 1865, slavery would be a common sight amongst plantations. The slaves would not stand idly in their predicament, learning how to improve their situations and sometimes reaching compromises or rebelling against slave masters. Slavery during the antebellum United States encompassed the ideals of whites in the North and South, the influential relationships between the whites and blacks, and the controversial lives the slaves led.