Freedom for African Americans

Freedom for African Americans

In short, the North & South eventually went to war over the issue of slavery. ​The North won! The end of the Civil War meant freedom for African Americans in the South.

​One thing Republicans agreed on was abolishing slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves only in areas that had not been occupied by Union forces, not in the border states. Many people feared that the federal courts might someday declare the proclamation unconstitutional.

​On January 31, 1865, at President Lincoln’s urging, Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment. This amendment made slavery illegal throughout the United States.

The amendment was ratified and took effect on December 18, 1865. When abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison heard the news, he declared that his work was now finished. He called for the American Anti-Slavery Society to break up. Not all abolitionists agreed that their work was done, however. Frederick Douglass insisted that “slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot [vote].”​

​

​The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the new rights of freed women and men in 1868. The law stated that everyone born in the United States, including former slaves, was an American citizen.

​

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment affirmed that the right to vote “shall not be denied…on account of race.”

​

Multiple Choice

What did the 13th amendment accomplish?

• It mad slavery illegal

• Grants citizenship & equal protection

• Guarantees voting rights

Multiple Choice

The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution...

• Gave African Americans citizenship
• Gave African Americans the right to vote
• Freed the slaves
• Gave landowners the right to sharecrop

Multiple Choice

What did the 15th amendment accomplish?

• Grants citizenship & equal protection

• Right to bear arms

• Bans slavery

• Guarantees voting rights

​Freedom brought important changes to newly freed slaves. Many couples held ceremonies to legalize marriages that had not been recognized under slavery. Many freedpeople searched for relatives who had been sold away from their families years earlier. Others placed newspaper ads seeking information about their children. Many women began to work at home instead of in the fields. Still others adopted children of dead relatives to keep families together. Church members established voluntary associations and mutual-aid societies to help those in need.

​For most former slaves, freedom to travel was just the first step on a long road toward equal rights and new ways of life. Adults took new last names and began to insist on being called Mr. or Mrs. as a sign of respect, rather than by their first names or by nicknames. Freedpeople began to demand the same economic and political rights as white citizens. Henry Adams, a former slave, argued that “if I cannot do like a white man I am not free.”

​Many former slaves wanted their own land to farm. Near the end of the Civil War, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman had issued an order to break up plantations in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. He wanted to divide the land into 40-acre plots and give them to former slaves as compensation for their forced labor before the war.

​

Many white planters refused to surrender their land. Some freedpeople pointed out that it was only fair that they receive some of this land because their labor had made the plantations prosper. In the end, the U.S. government returned the land to its original owners. At this time, many freedpeople were unsure about where they would live, what kind of work they would do, and what rights they had. Freedoms that were theirs by law were difficult to enforce.​

​

​Freedmen's Bureau

​In 1865 Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency providing relief for freedpeople and certain poor people in the South. The bureau had a difficult job. At its high point, about 900 agents served the entire South. Bureau commissioner Oliver O. Howard eventually decided to use the bureau’s limited budget to distribute food to the poor and to provide education and legal help for freedpeople.

Multiple Choice

Which is the best description of Reconstruction?

• rebuilding the US after a big earthquake
• a period of rebuilding in the US after the Revolutionary War
• a period of rebuilding in the US after the Civil War
• unfair treatment of African Americans after the Civil War

Multiple Choice

The following group provided aid (help) to former slaves during Reconstruction.

• Black Codes

• Carpetbaggers

• 13th Amendment

• Freedmen's Bureau

Multiple Choice

Who would have most likely NOT supported the Freedmen's Bureau?

• An abolitionist

• a carpetbagger

• a former slave owner

• a northern business owner