Reconstruction - Freedmen's Bureau

Reconstruction After the Civil War

​SS8H6

• I can explain the roles of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments in Reconstruction.

• I can explain key features of the Lincoln, Johnson, and Congressional Reconstruction plans.

• I can compare and contrast the goal and outcomes of the Freedmen's Bureau and the Ku Klux Klan.

• I can examine the reasons for and the effects of the removal of African American or Black legislatures from the Georgia General Assembly.

• I can gove examples of the goods and services produced during the Reconstruction Era, including the use of sharecropping and tenant farming.

​How would you describe the South after the Civil War?

The Reconstruction Period

• After the Civil War, large parts of the South was in ruins or destroyed

  • This includes Georgia!

• Now that the South was part of the Union again, it had to be rebuilt

• Reconstruction 1867-1877

  • the name given to the time period following the Civil War in which Southern states were brought back to the Union

  • the national government made plans to reconstruct the economic and political systems of the Southern states without slavery

The Freedmen's Bureau

• Officially known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

• Created by Congress to help the four million formerly enlaved individuals in their transition to freedom

  • Georgia had one of the highest African American populations, so the Freedman's Bureau was very important

• run by Union general Oliver Howard

• Goal - to help these formerly enslaved people, as well as poor white people, by:

  • suppliying food & clothing

  • building hospitals

  • building temporary camps for shelter

  • building schools & hiring teachers

  • overseeing agreements between freedmen and plantation owners

  • trying to reunite enslaved people with their families, if they were separated

The Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia

• In Georgia - enslaved people were denied the right to an education & there was no public school for them before the Civil War

• The Freedmen's Bureau helped to establish schools and train teachers

  • schools served both white & black students, but they were segregated

The Freedmen's Bureau

• helped to negotiate labor contracts between white landowners and black laborers

  • white landowners wanted black laborers to work in their fields & often intimidated and harassed them into working long hours for little pay

• also helped formerly enslaves people find employment, legalize their marriages, reunite with lost family memebers and help with the transition to freedom

• the goal was to help people & while the Freedmen's Bureau did provide assistance for millions of African Americans....

• it failed to provide protection for the rights of African Americans and to establish lasting progress for racial equality

Sharecropping & Tenant Farming

• Southern landowners still wanted to grow cash crops and needed labor

• many freed African American citizens in Georgia and other states who knew how to grow and harvest crops turned to former slaveholders for employment

  • Without having money to buy their own land and purchase supplies to tend to their farming, many freedmen took up tenant farming or sharecropping.

• In exchange for land to farm, they agreed to give the landowner a share of their crop at harvest time.

• Poor white farmers also served as tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Sharecropping & Tenant Farming

• Cash crops grown:

  • cotton

  • tobacco

  • rice

  • sugar

Multiple Choice

What is the name for the period after the Civil War when the states were brought back into the Union?

• Reconstruction

• Renaissance

• Resolution

• Renovation

Multiple Choice

What organization helped freed slaves after the war?

• Refugees' Society

• Freedman's Bureau

• Refugee Protection Service

• Freedman's Society

Multiple Choice

What did tenant farmers NOT usually own?

• animals

• enslaved people

• equipment

• supplies

Multiple Choice

Who benefited most from sharecropping and tenant farming?

• soldiers

• the government

• enslaved people

• landowners

Multiple Choice

Was sharecropping a good way to make a living and improve your life?

• Yes, sharecroppers were able to make enough money to pay their debts and improve their lives.

• No, sharecroppers were not able to make enough money to pay their debts and improve their lives.