The Gilded Age Flashcards
Church and School
-Black Methodist and Baptist churches
-Studying the bible, literacy, and missionary schools
-250 black Southern ministers held office during reconstruction
-first black colleges: Fisk, Hampton, Howard
Land Ownership
-Free blacks believed land ownership=frreedom
Merrimon Howard advocated for black land properties to buid free black communities
-some emancipated blacks seized formers owners’ lands
The Freedmen’s Bureau
-established by congress
-Director O.O. Howard
-established of black schools with northern funding
-3,000 schools and 15,000 pupils by 1869
-took over former army hopsitals and provided care and medicine to all
Failure of land reform
Andres Johnson ordered that land be returned to prior Civil War owners
-Sherman Land residents were evicted
-freed black had to return to work for former owners
-had to return to work for former owners
-women confined to working domestic jobs for white women
Sharecropping/crop-lien system
Blacks rented small land tracts and crops divided among planters and black farmers annually
crop-lien credit system entrappped these sharecropppers in debt, especially as world market for crops declined
southern cities
declining agrarian economy increased growth of urban economy
railroads in the intereior allowed for direct trade between S and N cities
led to development of middle class merchants, railroad promoters, bankersA
Andrew Johnson and his plan for Reconstruction
republican
states rights supporter
Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867)
pardoned white southerners who pledged Union allegiance
formation of autonomous southern state govs that suppressed blacks
Black codes
denied right to witness against whites, vote, and take part in state juries and militias
forced blacks to work, if by forced labor
violated free labor principles
some southern leaders, like Henry Wirz of Andersonian, executed/arrested
northern anger led to opposition to radical reconstruction
Radical Republicans
wanted Johnson’s southern govs dissolved and new ones formed without rebel leaders and where black men could vote
progressives from NE and burned over districts
Charles Summner and Thaddeas Stephens
Stephens wanted disloyal southern planters lands be divided up among emancipated blacks and nothern immigrants
felt reconstruction was a good time for equality
Civil Rights bill of 1866
All american-born are citizens
list of citizens rights regardless of race
proposed by Congress’s moderates who wanted to revise presidential reconstruction
vetoed by johnson
congress overrode veto
helped stop discriminatory black codes
14th Amendment
All U.S. citizens are equal before law, regardless of race
radicals angry that it didn’t protect black voting
compromise: SOuthern govs lose some congress representation if they try to suppress black voting
pressured south to protect black voting
revealed divisions
Radical Reconstruction/Reconstruction Act
1867 Act
split S into 5 military districts
new S state govs
provided Black men with the right to vote
initially vetoed by Johnson
Southern Republicans in Power
pulblic, state-funded schools
helped protect sharecroppers
colleges for blacks
S.C. state schools accept blacks
railroads, hotels, and enterpreises cannot discriminate by race
sharecroppers have primary access to their crops
South Carolina Land commission settles 14,000 black families on own lands
schools moslty racially segregated, aside from in New Orleans
The North’s Retreat
1870s, reconstruction ends
surge of N racism
national 1873 depression
democratic control of House in 1874
traditional S leaders regain power
Supreme Court decision damaged measures
Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) black butchers excluded from butchery monopoly, told state alone had power over citizens rights and 14th was irrelevant
