Reconstruction

Reconstruction

Students will examine the ways that people who were enslaved tried to claim their freedom after the Civil War.

Sarah Mapps Douglass

Sarah Mapp Douglass (1806–1882) was an abolitionist, writer and educator. The freeborn daughter of Robert and Grace Douglass, a distinguished black abolitionist family in Philadelphia, she joined her mother Grace as a founding member of the bi‐​racial Philadelphia Female Anti‐​Slavery Society (PFAS) in 1833.

The Sorting Hat

The Hat Choses Wisely

Gryffindor

Broc, Imelda, Harley, Briannan, Illiann, Ronileigh

Hufflepuff

Jason, Lauren-A, Olivia, AN, Breanna, Angellica

Ravenclaw

Karasi, Alyssa, D'onna, Jefferey, Lauren S, Sheyla

Slytherin

Mei, Alexis, Tyra, Nathaniel, Savanna, Tyler

Multiple Choice

What was the impact of the Three-Fifths Compromise in the U.S. Constitution?

• It meant that slave states had fewer seats in the House of Representatives.

• It ensured that slave states had disproportionate influence on elected roles with in the government

• It decreased the Electoral votes assigned to slave states.

• It had no political effect on the nation

Indigenous Enslavement

Provisions that guaranteed rights to formerly enslaved Africans, such as the 13th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment, did not protect Indigenous people from enslavement.

Continued Labor

African Americans enslaved by Indigenous people were also not clearly protected by these provisions or by the Reconstruction Treaties signed after the Civil War. The tribal status of these freedmen remains controversial today.

Multiple Choice

Enslaved people across the British colonies maintained aspects of their African culture in all of the following ways EXCEPT

• Cooking with rice, yams, okra and black-eyed peas

• Crafting musical instruments using gourds, skins and other objects.

• Maintaining burial traditions, such as including ritual objects in the grave.

• Continuing to communicate with each other in their home language.

Involuntary Servitude

Indigenous people were not protected from involuntary servitude in large part because they were excluded from citizenship rights in the Constitution as “Indians not taxed.” The Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of Indigenous people from 14th Amendment protection in Elk v. Wilkins (1884).

Pursuing Freedom

Freed African Americans sought to exercise their freedom in several ways, including relocating (leaving the plantations where they had been enslaved); pursuing education (in the numerous schools established after the war); living as families; and participating in politics.

Multiple Choice

Approximately what percentage of southern households owned enslaved people in 1860?

• 22

• 33

• 44

• 55

Black Excellence

Black voters became influential in Southern elections during Congressional Reconstruction. Between 1865 and 1877, black men served in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and in state capitols. More than 600 black men also served in state legislatures.

Citizenship Act

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 formally extended citizenship to all Indigenous people. Though some Indigenous people were already citizens by this time, many Indigenous people did not desire citizenship in the United States (they were already citizens of their own nations).

Multiple Choice

Why did slavery grow in the United States after the importation of enslaved people was banned in 1808?

• The international slave trade continued unabated despite the law

• High birth rates (enslavers treated women as “breeders”) led to natural increase in the population.

• A large number of free African Americans were captured and sold into slavery.

• Enslaved people were smuggled into the country from Canada