Chapter 12 Flashcards
Special Field Order 15
freedmen would receive land on January 16, 1865 This
military directive set aside a 30-mile-wide tract of land along the atlantic coast from Charleston, South Carolina, Jacksonville, Florida. White owners had abandoned the land, and Sherman reserved it for black families. The head of each family would receive “possessory title” to forty acres of land. Sherman also gave the freedmen the use of army mules, thus giving rise to the slogan, “Forty acres and a mule.’
Freedmen’s Bureau
Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands created as a temporary agency to assist freedmen to make the transition to freedom.
Southern Homestead Act
In early 1866 Congress attempted to provide land for freedmen with the passage of the Southern Homestead Act. More than three million acres of public land were set aside for black people and southern white people who remained loyal to the Union.
Share Cropping
dependent labor arrangement. 1866 bureau officials tried to force freedmen to sign labor contracts with white landowners-putting black people once again under white authority.
13th amendment
an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolishing slavery.
Black Codes
Used to restrict almost every aspect of life for free blacks, thus making a “slavery-like” living condition
• The black codes sought to ensure the availability of a subservient agricultural labor supply controlled by white people.
- They imposed severe restrictions on freedmen.
- required black people who wanted to establish a business to purchase licenses costing from $10 to $100.
- Permitted black children ages two to twenty-one to be apprenticed to white people
- Corporal punishment was legal.
- Employers were designated “masters” and employees “servants.” • restricted black people from loitering or vagrancy,
- restricted using alcohol or firearms, hunting, fishing, and grazing livestock.
- black people could not vote or serve on juries.
• The black codes conceded—just barely—freedom to black people.
Radical Republicans
(Political Party) strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for the former rebels, and emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for freedmen
14th Amendment
addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War.
1st Reconstruction Act
Military Reconstruction Act, passed into law on March 2, 1867 over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The act applied to all the ex-Confederate states in the South, except Tennessee who had already ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.
- It split the states into five military districts, each under the control of a Northern General whose responsibility it was to protect life and property while new civilian governments were formed.
- Universal Manhood Suffrage: The Reconstruction Act stipulated that all adult males in the states ol the former Confederacy were eligible to vote.
Describe the Freedmen’s Bureau and the different services it provided.
1866 Senator Lyman Trumball, a moderate Republican from Illinois, introduced two major bills.:
1 - The first was to provide more financial support for the Freedmen’s Bureau and extend its authority to defend the rights of black people.
2 - The second proposal was the first civil rights bill in American history. It made any person born in the United States a citizen (except Indians) and entitled them to rights protected by the U.S. government.
• The bill was clearly intended to invalidate the black codes.
What was Reconstruction?
The advent of radical Reconstruction was the culmination of black people’s struggle to gain legal and political rights.
