Unit 5: Post Reconstruction

Unit 5: Post Reconstruction

South Carolina History

Wade Hampton & the Bourbons

Gov. Wade Hampton’s supporters were known as the Redeemers (because they “redeemed” the state from the Republicans, and placed the antebellum elite back in political power) or the Bourbons (from the French royal family that was restored to the throne after the French Revolution).

They wanted to restore the government as closely as possible to the its prewar state


During this time, plantations were being replaced by small farmers, share croppers, and tenant farmers

Even though the elite were back in power, they did nothing to help the struggling poor farmers

When cotton prices were decreasing and farmers couldn’t pay their debts, the Bourbons passed a crop lien law that allowed creditors to have first claim on a farmer’s crop. This practice kept the farmers in continual debt.


Wade Hampton was willing to support the rights of African Americans to vote and hold office

Other Democrats were not supportive and moved to take away the African American’s right to vote

The Bourbons prevented freedmen from voting by using the Eight Box Law (which required a freedmen to be able to read in order to put the ballot in the right box) and the poll tax (which kept poor people from voting)

These regulations not only affected African Americans, but also poor whites


In order to offer a little assistance to poor, illiterate white voters, “grandfather clause” legislation was passed that allowed them to vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote in 1860

The South Carolina legislature also redrew Congressional districts so that only one district had an African American majority, which limited the number of African Americans elected to the United States Congress

South Carolina Economy

The Conservative Democrats were more interested in restoring the state to pre-war times and did little to encourage the growth of industrial development

The rest of the country was benefiting from the oil and steel industries,

SC benefited from the production of cottonseed oil, phosphates for fertilizers, the lumber industry, and the textile industry

These industries gained importance as the state was able to lure northern mills south by offering a source of cheap and non-union labor


Other regions of the Unites States were increasing crop production through mechanization (using tractors and harvesters)

South Carolina used phosphate fertilizers to increase cotton yields

After the war, farmers planted more and more cotton in an effort to make a profit.

This, along with using phosphate fertilizer, created a surplus (extra amount) of cotton in the state.

When the supply of the cotton exceeded (was more than) the demand for it, the price of cotton fell.


Cotton was still the main crop of SC, but it did not bring the state wealth the way it once had

European buyers had found new sources of supply during the war years, which lowered the demand

Farmers were unable to make payments on the loans that they had taken out to purchase land and equipment and were stuck in debt by the Bourbon’s crop lien law.

Farmers also faced bank foreclosures, losing their land for non payment of taxes, as well as drought and pests such as the army worm and the boll weevil that led to periodic crop failures

Populists

A social organization, known as the Grange, started to ease the isolation of farm life

The Grange was later replaced by Farmers’ Alliances in the 1880s

The Farmers Alliance pushed for a change in the money supply to help with continuing economic problems

Reflecting the social views of the time, the Farmers Alliance was segregated with African Americans being in the Colored Farmer’s Alliance

Populists

In the 1890s, Farmers Alliances around the country united to form the Populist Party

It supported: the regulation of railroads and banking the free and unlimited coinage of silver a system of federal farm loans Democratic reforms such as the popular election

of Senators, the secret ballot, and a graduated income tax.

Populists

Farmers tried to unite with industrial workers by encouraging an eight-hour day and restrictions on immigration

The Populist Party was successful in electing senators, governors and state legislators in the South and West

One of these men was Benjamin Ryan Tillman

Ben Tillman

Ben Tillman was popular because he was a great speaker and had good political skills

He had Populists beliefs (protect the small farmer against the elitist Bourbons), but wasn’t a true Populist and wanted to gain control of the Democratic party in SC

Tillman had racist views and didn’t like the Southern Populists’ attempt to get the African Americans’ votes

Ben Tillman

He blamed the Conservatives (Bourbons) for the small farmers economic problems and didn’t support the elitist ideas of the University of South Carolina

He wanted to have a college that would teach small farmers better crop management and to develop new crops to increase their economic prosperity

Thomas G Clemson, son-in-law of John C. Calhoun, died and left land to help create such a school, which later became Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical School

Ben Tillman

Clemson was a land grant college, which means that the federal Morrill Act used money gained from the sale of lands in the west to support agricultural improvements in each of the established states.

Ben Tillman

Tillman opposed the Conservative Bourbons because they had done little or nothing to address the

needs of the states’ farmers they generally accepted the rights of some

African Americans to vote and hold office

Ben Tillman

Tillman ran for governor on a platform of white superiority and later led the movement to further disenfranchise the African-American voter

His bigotry and racist speeches led to increased violence and lynchings and African Americans who dared to protest were intimidated into silence

Ben Tillman

Tillman won the Democratic nomination for governor and was almost guaranteed a victory

A Conservative opponent ran as an independent and openly sought the support of the remaining black voters

Whites united against any chance of African-Americans regaining political power and Tillman won the governorship in 1890 and again in 1892

Ben Tillman

As governor he: established a railroad commission to regulate

rates passed legislation that limited the hours for

textile workers to 66 hours and 6 days a week.

Ben Tillman

Governor Tillman amended a state prohibition act

Instead, he substituted the State Dispensary system

The state would control the distribution of alcohol

This worked for awhile, but eventually became corrupt.

Ben Tillman

In 1894 Tillman was elected to the U.S. senate from South Carolina

He urged his followers to call for a new state constitution to replace the Reconstruction constitution of 1868 and to cement his control of the Democratic Party

He wanted to be sure that the black majority did not provide political support to his Conservative opposition

Ben Tillman

The new 1895 state constitution: required that there be separate schools for black

and white children It effectively kept blacks from voting by making

voters pay a poll tax six months before the election

It established a literacy test for voting by requiring that voters be able to read and interpret the United States Constitution

Jim Crow Laws

The state also passed Jim Crow Laws, which set social segregation into law

In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that such laws were constitutional

The Court ruled that separate-but-equal facilities satisfied the 14th Amendment’s requirement for equal protection under the law in the case of Plessy v Ferguson

Jim Crow Laws

Although African-American South Carolinians protested their exclusion from public life, violence, intimidation and lynchings by white terrorists effectively silenced them

Women’s Suffrage

The women’s suffrage (the right to vote) movement continued in South Carolina

Women’s organizations that formed in South Carolina to support women’s right to vote were disappointed when in 1920 the state of South Carolina refused to ratify the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution that allowed women to vote

Natural Disasters

In 1886, an earthquake devastated Charleston

Measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale, it was the largest earthquake in the United States at that time and was felt by two-thirds of all Americans

Because of building construction that relied on masonry rather than wood frames, which would move better with the earth, over 2,000 buildings were destroyed

Natural Disasters

Racism prevented an accurate count of the number of people who were killed, some estimates place the number as high as 500

The city didn’t get state and federal assistance, but the people of Charleston were able to form the most rapid, humane and financially responsible recovery from the destruction of a large scale disaster in American history up to that time

Natural Disasters

Outpourings of sympathy and assistance came from all over the country that had recently been divided by the Civil War

Much of what is generally now known about earthquakes was a result of the scientific study of the Charleston quake

Natural Disasters

Hurricane of 1893 was one of a series of seven that stuck the South Carolina coast in a 20 year period

Rice fields were wiped and competition from the Far East brought an end to the production of ‘Carolina Gold

Tobacco, peaches, and cotton continued to be grown

Textile Mills

The surplus of cotton in South Carolina drove the prices down, but led growth of the textile industry in the Upcountry

Local investors soon provided most of the capital for the building of textile mills, located close to the cotton fields and along rivers that would supply power

Textile Mills

South Carolina also had a ready supply of workers Poor farmers who could no longer make a living

from the land were attracted to mill villages that provided homes, schools, churches, and stores in addition to jobs

The first mills were started in the Upstate, within 15 years there were mills in the Midlands and the Low Country

By 1910, South Carolina was the second largest textile producing state in the nation

Textile Mills

Life for mill workers was not ideal The conditions in the mill village depended upon

the generosity of the mill owners and the economic conditions of the times

When depression struck, workers were laid off Some mill children were able to go to school Others worked in the mill where their small fingers

made them better able to retie broken threads but they were more susceptible to workplace accidents

Textile Mills

Men, women and children worked long hours for low pay and were often looked down upon as “lint heads.”

Workers in South Carolina were paid less than half of what mill workers in other parts of the United States

They worked from 6 am until 6 pm until Governor Tillman’s law reduced hours to 66 per week

Textile Mills

Workers often suffered from diseases of the lung including tuberculosis from breathing in the cotton fiber and from the crowded conditions of their workplace

Accidents in the mill could end a worker’s career Workers were unable to organize into unions to

improve their conditions since union organizers were immediately fired and the organized labor movement consistently crushed by the mill owners

Population Migration

Mill villages in South Carolina drew much of the white population from rural areas to urban areas within South Carolina

Prior to the Civil War, Southerners were moving west in search of new land as their cotton crops depleted (removed nutrients from) the soil

After the Civil War, many people moved west from other areas in the US and from overseas


Free land and the transcontinental railroad used aggressive advertising and land sales to bring settlers to the West through but also provided farmers access to new markets

African Americans were drawn to the urban areas in the Northeast and the Midwest for job opportunities in factories that were not open to them in the mills of South Carolina (such as such as weaving or dying fabric)


African Americans were also pushed out of the state by: the continued agricultural depression the ravages of the boll weevil the social discrimination of Jim Crow laws increasing violence


Large numbers of immigrants stayed away from South Carolina because of the depressed economic conditions, lack of available land, and the lack of industrial jobs

The mills had plenty of transplanted farmers from the rural areas of the state and had little need for immigrants

Immigration had a much greater impact on the cities of the Northeast and Midwest


Many immigrants established businesses including the founder and editor of The State newspaper, who was an immigrant from Cuba

some immigrants moved to the plains and established farms

many immigrants were too poor to move beyond the port cities where they landed

Ethnic neighborhoods grew as immigrants looked for the familiar in a strange new land

South Carolina city neighborhoods were divided into black and white sections


African American communities reflected those of the immigrant communities as sources of support against the white political machine

Northern resentment against the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe can be seen as a Northern reflection of the anti-African American prejudices in South Carolina


Some people who helped immigrants had hidden agenda in politics

Immigrants voted for ward bosses and politicians who found them jobs and helped them through hard times

Many political bosses were corrupt and routinely used bribery in awarding city contracts, but they did serve an important role in helping new immigrants

to adapt to their new country.


The prejudice against immigrants led to literacy tests proposed in Congress in the 1890s, and immigration restrictions in the form of a quota system passed in the 1920s

Whites felt that their race was better than all the others, so they had a right to rule over the other races

They tried to establish their superiority and felt that that competition between races was a form of Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) and gave them an excuse for white supremacy.

Spanish American War

There were many causes of the US involvement in the Spanish American War: Political and economic pressure from within the US The US’s desire to support the rights of Cubans

against an oppressive Spanish regime Yellow journalism (propaganda) Exacerbated by the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in

Havana’s harbor


Victory in Cuba came quickly and established the United States as a world power

The United States expanded in the South Pacific with the annexation of Hawaii and the capture of Manila harbor in the Philippines


The war had little direct impact on our state; the two regiments of soldiers organized in South Carolina never even saw battle.

It did create unity in the state and opened up greater worldwide

trade and markets for South Carolina goods Reconciled the SC Democratic Party that had been split

into the Tillmanites and the Conservatives Revived national patriotism, as Americans united against

a common enemy.


The creation of Camp Jackson had a dramatic impact on the economic health of the state

The war showed that many South Carolinians suffered from poor health and illiteracy

Almost one out of three South Carolina volunteers were found to be medically unfit for military service, a trend echoed across the country in World War I.

Unit 5: Post Reconstruction

Documents

farmers crop

harvesterssouth carolina

crop production

bourbons crop lien law

small farmers

cotton yieldsafter

price of cotton

poor whiteswade hampton