The Reconstruction Era

Blackmon provides many stories in his book about what the slaves to forced laborers went through and how they felt about the new so called “freedom” they gained. The Black Americans prior to the Emancipation Proclamation have never seen the slightest clue to what freedom could even feel like. “Some of the old slaves said they too weren’t sure what “freedom” really was”

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.

This joy for African Americans soon ended when they realized that the leeway for their rights got smaller each day, as the North began focusing on other issues and Southern Democrats began slowly rising back to political power. A former slave woman in Texas recounts the violence and reality of being a freed person. She states her master made her work months after she was legally freed, and that she could see lots of former slaves hanging from trees. Her point of view, as an African American woman, is significant because she gives us insight on the price that came with being freed in the South(Document 5). Southern states learned ways to work around federal racial protection laws just to oppress and make African Americans feel like second class citizens again.

In his report to the secretary of war, Major Butler poses the question that many individuals did during the time regarding fugitive slaves; “are they free”, and if so, “what do we do with them?” (Doc. A) Many adopted the slaves as proletarian workers and farmers, and as people began to recognize the importance of their labor, the war began to shift. During the Civil War, a group of African Americans met to discuss President Abraham Lincoln’s proposal for Black resettlement in a foreign land. This proposal was immediately shut down due to the burden of fighting an all-out war. Under such trying circumstances, the idea of removing Black citizens through colonization was unthinkable. Although Lincoln did not think colonizing millions of African Americans was possible, he remained convinced that the profound differences between the White and Black races made such resettlement desirable. (Doc.

family, which meant less financial dependence on the American government. The black man, then responsible for more than himself, suffered greater pressure to obtain work. Not only was vagrancy against the law at the time, but also the inability to find work would potentially mean the family would starve. Because of this, most freed slaves fell victims to Sharecropping, where they would work a share of the land in exchange for crops. Just like the landowner, they too had to suffer any losses in failed crops. Because the land they lived and worked on was rented, many families found themselves financially bound to the landowner. These free men and families fell into debt, and essentially became

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

When the government implemented the Reconstruction plan, every citizen- Northerners, Southerners, African Americans, Whites, Females, Males- had diverse views on the government’s actions. In a letter written to a newspaper editor, a former slave shared his negative opinions on the government regarding the treatment of freemen and freewomen after the ratification of the 13th amendment. Samuel Childress responded negatively by saying “It would seem that it was regarded as a greater crime to be black than to be a rebel.” He claims a former slave’s life is unjust because they works with little pay and often can only find working using the skills they already know. Most of the freemen have only learned how to farm and are forced to work for their

To what extent were African-American slaves “free” after the abolition of slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863? What challenges did they face after their emancipation? This is a subject of continued interest. History is rife with records of decades of untold torture and harrowing experiences. African-American slaves suffered at the hands of their captors and masters. They were denied all natural rights as human beings and forced to live like animals. A slave was viewed as one-third of a person and the property of their owner(s) and treated as objects, mere things. One would therefore assume that after their emancipation, life would become significantly better because the slaves were free to move away from

Much of America’s history was overcast by the darkness that was slavery. The battle against it took many years to be completed, and even free blacks were restricted by laws and social constructs. Though slavery had been largely forgotten in the Northern states by the early 1800s, many years before the Emancipation Proclamation’s passing in 1863, racism still stood strong. Free blacks in the North, who made up only 4.9 percent of the nationwide African American population (How Free…Blacks, 2013), could not participate in politics, have extended interaction with whites, or find jobs above servitude. For these reasons, it can be concluded that free blacks in the North, while freer than slaves, were still not entirely free.

“A thing that has been rebuilt after being damaged or destroyed” “Comparison between the original and the reconstruction” Reconstruction, a huge event in American history that tipped the nation almost to its wits end. The problems of Reconstruction ranged from gang violence to segregation and gender inequality to radicals. At this point in America’s history the nation was a little more stable than a house of cards, the government trying to keep the nation together, compromise after compromise trying to be crafted, balance trying to be found at every corner but with more issues arising with every try. There were two initial plans for reconstruction:

On September 22, President Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the slave states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” As a result, although many aside freed slaves that stayed on the plantations, the ones that left found themselves with no alternative way to earn a living. As Frederick Douglas stated in his autobiography; “free from the individual master, but the slave of society” (Tye, 20).

Horton wrote that African Americans tried to persuade the United States Supreme Court, Federal Government and the citizens into accepting their rights as equal citizens and grant them freedom; however, African Americans were never treated as equal members or citizens; they were either free or owned slaves (34). African American slaves sought their freedom through different ways because they were never recognized as equal citizens. The first way slaves sought freedom was through believing that their owners who treated them in a nice manners, promised to grant them freedom (9). The second was through African American slaves marrying free African Americans; this was the case of Harriet Tubman and John Tubman (9). Slaves believed that by marrying free slaves, eventually they would become free themselves. Finally, several slaves obtained their freedom through running away from their owners and escaping to other countries and creating new lives for themselves as free citizens like Fredrick Douglass did

The post war economy left many nations across the world severely affected. The economies of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East demanded new materials as the post war era of reconstruction began to shape modern economic thought. This lead to a rapid embrace of Keynesian, or centrally planned economic theories, to encourage the recovery of nations devastated, as well as the growth of nations that were not at that point considered amongst the “developed world”. This radical notion of central planning resulted in many nations expanding the traditional role of government in the context of the economy. This shift in dynamic and approach to economic thought was felt especially in the fledgling Latin American economies. Out of this thinking, a radical approach to increase the self sufficiency of these Latin American countries was embarked upon. The concept of Import Substitution Industrialization was pioneered to assist the Latin American countries into formulating an economy that can compete and build a better society for the citizens of their countries. The economic concept revolves around the idea of enhancing the local production of a nation, and to eventually have the nation begin to rely less on imported goods from other nations(1). This internal market enhances the production and growth of a nation’s local economy, giving jobs and sustainability to that nation while increasing the nation’s dependence upon itself rather than a foreign power. Through emphasizing industrial

In the years prior to the Reconstruction era, the nation was involved in a brutal civil war—one of the most destructive to ever take place. The North and the South were fighting against each other, with the Confederate States fighting for secession and slavery, and the Union fighting for an in tact country. Abraham Lincoln, the newly elected president, was against secession and blatantly stated so in his inaugural address, “A husband and wife may be divorced, but the different parts of our nation cannot.” Nonetheless, for four excruciating years, war took place and ended in 1865, with the siege of Petersburg, “[costing] the nation more than 600,000 lives, nearly as many as in all other American wars combined.” Just before the war ended and the Union won the victory, Lincoln began his second term. Unfortunately, he was assassinated soon after in mid-April. From this point on, the nation began rebuilding itself through reconstruction for the next twelve years. While the Reconstruction period following the Civil War produced many significant results, particularly in the arena of Constitution Amendments, it nevertheless fell short in binding the nation’s wounds. Without a replacement for Lincoln, the Republican Party was tragically unable or unwilling to seize the day and implement an effective, lasting and just national reconciliation.

The definition of freedom for former slaves encompassed not only escaping the cruelties of slavery, but also exercising the same liberties that white Americans were able to. The end of institutionalized slavery opened the doors to land and labor as well as economical self-determination and political participation. Institutions of the black community that had existed previously were given a new vigor having been freed from white supervision and control.