Post Assessment review 10th Grade

Use the information in the box to answer the question that follows.

Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau in March 1865 to support former slaves as they made the transition to freedom. Agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau worked to establish a system of free labor, mediate disputes over contracts and other matters, and to ensure that free blacks received justice and equal treatment in the courts and other public institutions.

Which of the following identifies another way that the Freedmen’s Bureau supported opportunities for former slaves in the South?

• It offered assistance for those who wanted to resettle in Africa.

• It helped to provide education by opening and managing schools.

• It organized political parties to elect African Americans to Congress.

• It provided transportation for workers migrating North for factory jobs.

Use the information to answer the question that follows. 

“Black Codes” were laws and constitutional amendments passed by Southern

 states after the Civil War. In North Carolina, for example, the code enacted

 in 1866 allowed a black person to testify in court if the case involved African

 Americans; if the case involved two white people, then both had to agree

 to allow a black person to testify. If one black person sold property worth more

 than ten dollars to another black person, the transaction had to be witnessed by

 a white person who could read or write.

What best explains the reason why codes like this were enacted in Southern states? 

• to maintain the control of whites over African Americans

• to guide newly freed slaves as they gained experience as citizens

• to ensure that African Americans had the same legal rights as whites

• to meet federal standards on civil rights required for rejoining the Union

Use the information to answer the question that follows. 

Created in 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau aided African Americans by

 providing food and medical care, helping with resettlement, ensuring justice

 with contracts and in courts, managing abandoned and confiscated property,

 regulating labor, and establishing schools. The Freedmen’s Bureau stopped

 its work in 1872.

What best explains the reason why the Freedmen’s Bureau was established?

• to organize African Americans into a national political party

• to encourage African Americans from the South to get jobs in the North

• to segregate African Americans through separate but equal opportunities

• to help African Americans in the South in making the change from slavery

What was the primary goal of the Freedmen’s Bureau?

• enforcing private property rights for landowners

• providing essential services to former slaves

• removing restrictions to suffrage for young adults

• ending the military occupation of the Southern states

Use the information below to answer the question.

The presidential race of 1876 led to a contested election. After several months of disagreement, in 1877 Democratic and Republican leaders agreed to a compromise. The Democratic leaders would accept the Republican presidential candidate in exchange for Republican promises to withdraw federal troops from the South. Furthermore, the federal government agreed to stay out of southern affairs.

Which statement is supported by this information?

• The parties remained in competition for political control.

• The South began to be concerned with industrial expansion.

• The national focus had shifted away from civil rights issues.

• The North continued to be concerned with protecting states’ rights.

 Use the excerpt below to answer the question.

Without land of their own, many blacks were drawn into schemes where they worked a portion of the land owned by whites for a share of the profit from the crops. They would get all the seeds, food, and equipment they needed from the company store, which allowed them to run a tab throughout the year and to settle up once the crops, usually cotton, were gathered. When accounting time came, the black farmer was always a few dollars short of what he owed the landowner, so he invariably began the new year with a deficit. 

—The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States, Trudier Harris, 1995

Based on this excerpt, how did the economy of the South change in the 1870s?

• High prices increased the demand for agricultural crops.

• Sharecropping replaced slavery as the main labor system.

• Workforce reduction limited the ability of farmers to profit from crops.

• Limited work opportunities encouraged mass migration to other areas.

 Use the list below to answer the question that follows.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

• new state constitutions had to provide for universal male suffrage 

• new state constitutions had to be approved by a majority of registered voters 

• states had to ratify the 14th Amendment 

What was the main purpose of these requirements?

• to gain political support from advocates of states’ rights

• to specify how former states of the Confederacy could rejoin the Union

• to make it more difficult for newly freed slaves to enjoy the rights of citizenship

• to recognize the constitutions ratified by Southern states during the Confederacy

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise included provisions to ban slavery in some federal territories. The Supreme Court overturned those provisions in its Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling in 1857. How did Congress eventually invalidate the Supreme Court’s decision?

• It asked state courts to uphold the provisions.

• It impeached the justices who made the ruling

• It rejected the ruling with a two-thirds majority vote.

• It passed the 13th Amendment to make slavery illegal.

Use the chart below to answer the question.

Texas during Reconstruction

• The 13th Amendment abolished slavery.

 • Texas plantation owners had very little cash.

 • A new system of labor was necessary for

   farming. 

How did Texas address the labor problems described above?

• Farmers began to recruit workers from northern cities.

• Freed slaves began sharecropping in Texas.

• Local leaders began hiring temporary workers from Europe

• Texas repealed child labor laws that were in effect during the war.

  “Exodusters” is the term used to describe African Americans who left the Southern states after Reconstruction ended. Many Exodusters settled in the West, particularly in Kansas. What was one factor that led Exodusters to move westward?

• the lack of sharecropping opportunities for African Americans in the South

• the spread of laws supporting segregation and discrimination in the South

• The refusal of Southern states to observe the Thirteenth Amendment

• the impact of environmental damage on southern agriculture