Ch. 17 3 pp

Why It MattersWe had survived our worst war, but the end of the Civil War left Americans to deal with a set of pressing issues. The status of some 3.5 million former enslaved people had yet to be decided. Nor had the terms by which the former Confederate states would rejoin the Union been decided. How Americans would handle these issues would shape the future of our country.

The Impact TodayDebate over the rightful power of the federal government and the states continues to this day. Americans continue to wrestle with the problem of providing civil rights and equal opportunity to all citizens.

Section 3: The South DuringReconstruction

Chapter Objectives

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• Identify what groups participated in the South’s Reconstruction.

• Explain how Southern life changed during Reconstruction.

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Guide to Reading

After the Civil War the South had to rebuild not only its farms and roads, but its social and political structures as well.

• scalawag

Main Idea

Key Terms

• carpetbagger • corruption

• integrate

• sharecropping

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New Groups Take Charge • The Republican Party consisted of three main

groups that dominated Southern politics: African Americans, white Southerners who supported Republican policies, and white settlers from the North who moved to the South.

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- African Americans held important positions but did not control the government of any state.

- Between 1869 and 1880, sixteen African Americans served in the House and two in the Senate.

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New Groups Take Charge (cont.)

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- Hiram Revels was elected to the Senate from Mississippi in 1870 and served one year.

- Blanche K. Bruce was the other senator, also from Mississippi, who was elected in 1874 and served six years.

- The Confederates called some Southern whites who had opposed secession and were nonslaveholding farmers or business leaders scalawags or scoundrels.

- They hated them for siding with the Republicans.

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New Groups Take Charge (cont.)

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- Many Northern whites who moved to the South and supported the Republicans were called carpetbaggers by their critics.

- They got the name because they carried suitcases made of carpet fabric with all their belongings.

- Others were reformers who wanted to help reshape Southern society.

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• Most white Southerners opposed efforts to expand the rights of African Americans.

• Plantation owners still tried to keep control of the freed people.

• They kept them on the plantations and refused to rent land to them.

• Store owners refused them credit, and employers refused them work.

New Groups Take Charge (cont.)

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• During Reconstruction secret societies committed violence against African Americans and white supporters of African Americans.

• The Ku Klux Klan, formed in 1866, killed them and burned their homes, churches, and schools.

• The Klan’s supporters were Southerners, especially planters and Democrats who wanted to reestablish white supremacy and saw violence as a way to attack Republicans.

New Groups Take Charge (cont.)

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• Southerners opposed to violence and terrorism appealed to the federal government.

• In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed several laws without too much success.

• Some arrests were made, but most white Southerners would not testify against these people.

New Groups Take Charge (cont.)

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Some Improvements• Reconstruction brought important changes,

especially in education.

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• African Americans created their own schools in some regions.

• The Freedmen’s Bureau and private charities spread the value of education.

• Free African Americans from the North and Northern women taught in the schools.

• By 1870 about 4,000 schools existed and more than half the teachers were African Americans.

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• Public school systems for both races were created in the 1870s.

• Generally whites and African Americans attended different schools.

• More than 50 percent of white children and about 40 percent of African Americans went to public schools within a few years.

Some Improvements (cont.)

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• The other major change occurred in farming.

• Most African Americans were not able to buy their own land.

• Instead, they rented a plot of land from a landowner along with a shack, some seed, and tools.

• They became sharecroppers.

Some Improvements (cont.)

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• Sharecropping was not much better than slavery for many because in return for the use of the land, the sharecroppers had to pay the landowner by giving him a share of the crops they grew.

• Barely anything was left for their families, and they rarely had enough to sell and to make any money.

Some Improvements (cont.)

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