Reconstruction in America: the South after the Civil War

Question 1

When did the Civil War take place?

Answer 1

Between 1861-1865

Question 2

When did contentions between the North and South become more prevalent?

Answer 2

• The 1830s signified emergence of greater Northern critique of slavery, spurring rise of abolitionist movements.
• The South counteracted with their own critique of Northern factory wage labour and justifications for slavery based on racial ideologies.

Question 3

What can the basic premise of the contentions between the North and South be considered as?

Answer 3

Clash between the Republican North and the Southern planter ideologies.

Question 4

What made the Civil War different from any other war in history?

Answer 4

• It was photographed, providing illustrations like no other, highlighting the brutality etc.
  E.g. image of ‘Peter’ a former slave, taken by Mathew Brady, exemplifies the harsh beatings that slaves suffered
• First industrialised war, introducing repeating firearms through machine gun.

Question 5

What impact did the Civil Wr have on America in general?

Answer 5

• 600,000 killed approx. with 500,000 wounded.

- Total cost est. $6 billion (Goldin and Lewis)

Question 6

Did the Civil War affect the North or South more detrimentally?

Answer 6

The South.

• Experienced most of the war and destruction
• Halted cotton trade

Question 7

How did the prospect of emancipation develop during the Civil War?

Answer 7

• Emancipation wasn’t an explicit aim of war.
• 1863 = Emancipation Proclamation (not entirely effective)
• No compensation provided to former owners (set. capital value of slaves in 1860 = $2.7 billion stated by Goldin.

Question 8

How did the South react to their defeat in the war?

Answer 8

Introduced Black Codes:

• vagrants/wanderers subject to arrest or fines
• workers who quit lost wages and could be imprisoned.

Question 9

What is a significant racist group which emerged at the end of the war?

Answer 9

The Ku Klux Klan are a white supremacist group, founded in December 1865.
- Often terrorised newly emancipated territories and inflict violence.

Question 10

How did the lives newly emancipated slaves change?

Answer 10

• Move to reunite with families.
• Refusal to accept ‘gang’ labour in cotton
• General decline in hours worked (28-37%)
• Life no longer dictated by field labour, able to partake in other leisure activities

Question 11

What ambitions did African Americans have?

Answer 11

• Sought political rights and integration (Rapid growth of collective action campaigning for voting, access to courts, representation and citizenship rights)
• Wanted to eliminate ‘black codes’
• Access to education as a priority (only 10% African Americans accessed education in 1870 compared to 54% of whites but gradually began to increase)

Question 12

How did the North and their political power and influence impact the South?

Answer 12

• Ended black codes
• Introduce 15th Amendment (1870) forbidding bars on voting
• Use of Northern state militias to resist violence
• Establishment of Freedmen’s Bureau (1865-1870) for education, relief funds, some protection of black rights in work contracts, marriages and records.

Question 13

What were the economic prospects of African Americans?

Answer 13

• Now free labour but had no immediate access to capital.
• Had hopes for ‘40 acres and a mule’ via land redistribution, but not pursued by federal government
• Former slaveholders largely retained ownership of land so often former slaves would continue to depend on slaveholders

Question 14

What was sharecropping and why did this become a popular prospect among ex-slaves?

Answer 14

Sharecropping

• new form of slavery replacing chattel slavery
• dependant on peonage = form of debt slavery in which employer compels worker to pay off a debt with work

Question 15

What were wage contracts?

Answer 15

• Southern planter’s attempt of maintaining a system which resembled previous slave system.
• Similar work but now had wage to take him but still probably insubstantial in relation to value of products being made.
• Subject to discipline (fines) not whipping.
• Some contracts ensured worker would be in debt at end of year taking advantage of worker’s illiteracy

Question 16

Give evidence which reinforces that white southerners continued to dominate farming industries.

Answer 16

• In 1899, 58.5% of farms were owned by white farmers.
• The farms of African American farmers had a higher percentage of cash and share tenancy operating than the white farmers.

Question 17

Give a first hand account of an ex-slave and their memory of sharecropping.

Answer 17

Henry Blake recalled that while sharecropping, they wouldn’t make any money, only being provided with overalls and food. He also highlights the the illiteracy of ex-slaves was commonly taken advantage of - ‘a man that didn’t know how to count would always lose.’

Question 18

How did the production of cotton redevelop after the war?

Answer 18

• Attributed to new farming systems of sharecropping and tenancy.
• By early 20th century, over 10 million cotton sales were being made compared to 1849 when there was only just over 2 million cotton sales. (US share of world production grew to 77% by 1880 despite its drop to just 10% during the war)
• US production of cotton expanding rapidly after war so South actually more dependent on cotton at this time.

Question 19

How did sharecropping impact the African Americans who were involved in it?

Answer 19

• Pete Daniel, US historian, reaffirms that sharecropping lead to debt peonage and debt was hard to escape due to violence and illiteracy.

Question 20

How did emancipation impact urbanisation?

Answer 20

African Americans contributed to urbanising cities.
- E.g. in cities such as Charleston, Savannah and Memphis, the black population made up significant amount of the total population from 1880-1910.

Question 21

How were African American’s finding their space in urbanising areas?

Answer 21

Anchor’ businesses: banks, insurance, publishing = professions often run by African Americans for their own communities.

Question 22

How did signifiant black population in urbanising areas have negative effects?

Answer 22

• Increasing formal and informal segregation.
• White candidates for mayor sought to disenfranchise blacks
• Competition for jobs spurring racism.
• Violence (22-24 Sept. 1906 Atlanta race riot (25 killed)—following reports alleging rape of white women by African Americans)

Question 23

When did the South return/re-assert their power?

Answer 23

Redemption political era from 1878 signifying:
- withdrawal of northern control - return of Democratic party and elites

Economic pressures (1870s/90s)
- whites often take out frustration on African Americans

Promoted idea of black ‘retrogression’—criminality, licentiousness, the more educated, the more dangerous (Williamson, Rage for Order)

White conservative fears of radicalism.

Question 24

What were the Jim Crow laws and why were they implemented?

Answer 24

Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in the South.

• Increasing disenfranchisement: poll tax; white primary elections; literacy tests
• Led to greater social segregation: housing, restaurants, hotels, schools

Can be attributed to the decline of northern political influence and perhaps of interest
- benefit experienced by the North as a result of slavery would be the reduced competition for industrial jobs and markets as the South failed to develop a ‘substantial manufacturing sector’. (Passell and Atak)

Question 25

How was violence becoming more prevalent?

Answer 25

1882-1930 over 2,000 people lynched (avg. 1 per week)

• increasingly a southern phenomenon
• African-American victims
• Seasonal variations (summer peak)
• 1889-1918 Georgia carried out most lynchings (386)

Question 26

How was lynching maintained?

Answer 26

• Becoming a sort of ritual.
• Spectator sport, there were often audiences (public violence)
• Created a sense of unity among whites.
• Eliminated competition of black labour

Question 27

In what ways did people begin to react against the public violence?

Answer 27

• Emergence of ‘black spaces’ and campaigns for equality
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP 1909
  = most effective civil rights organisation of 20th century, desired federal anti-lynching laws, later desegregated schools

Question 28

How are racist ideologies prevalent into the early 20th century after the decline of lynching?

Answer 28

• Birth of a Nation (directed by D.W. Griffith) in 1915 essentially, 3 hours of racist propaganda.
• Ku Klux Klan portrayed as heroes.
• Blacks played by whites, terrorising white women playing to stereotypes.

Question 29

What did many African-American’s eventually resort to as a solution to the discrimination?

Answer 29

The Great Migration (1915-1960)

- ca. 5 million African-American Southerners move North

Question 30

How can the mobility of African-Americans be concluded?

Answer 30

• Between 1870-90s they moved from rural to urban areas.

- Between 1910-20s began shifting from South to North.