The Meaning of Freedom: The Promise of
Reconstruction 1865-1868
Chapter 12
Generalizations about time period
• Different segments of the African American
community exist at same time
– Always free
– Escaped free
– Freed at end of Civil War
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Family
Land
Social Equality
Participation in the political process
Timeline
• January 1, 1863 Emancipation
Proclamation
• April 1865 Confederacy surrenders;
Lincoln assassinated
• December 1865 Thirteenth Amendment
ratified
End of Slavery
• Differing reactions of former slaves
– Embraced freedom bluntly
– Fear and apprehension (elderly)
• Reuniting Families
– Slavery had NOT destroyed families
– Attempts to reassemble families
• Newspaper ads
• Reunions, remarriage
End of Slavery~Land
• Land
Ownership=Economic
Freedom
• Special Field Order #15
– Jan 16, 1865
– Gen Sherman’s Forty Acres
& A Mule
– Charleston, SC to
Jacksonville, FA (Sea or
Gullah Islands)
– No cotton or rice; sweet
potatoes and corn
– Worked as families not
gangs
End of Slavery~Land
• The Port Royal Experiment (1861)
– Prior to Special Field Order #15
– Former slaves cultivate land around Beaufort
& Port Royal, SC
– Purchased by former slaves and Northerners
after being auctioned off
– Under federal/military authority until 1865
– Defended by armed AA
The Freedmen’s Bureau (FB)
• 1865 Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands
• Temporary agency to help transition
• Gen Oliver O Howard
• Much to do, not staffed well, corruption
• Circular 13 forty acre plots for freedmen
– Revoked w/Special Field Order #15
– Andrew Johnson
– Gen Howard response
Southern Homestead Act
• 1866
• Another attempt to provide land to
freedmen
• 3 mill acres of land for AA and loyal Whites
set aside
• Land unsuitable for farming
• Act fails
Sharecropping (265)
• FB tries for force freedmen into “contracts”
with landowners
– Unequal terms
• Some landowners paid w/money others
agreed to pay w/part of crops
• Various “contract” agreements
• Cycle of debt and “neuvo” slavery
The Black Church
• Most important institution in AA community
• AA organized own after end of slavery
• Filled spiritual, educational, political needs
of AA
• Baptist, Methodist, AME, CME,
Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal,
Roman Catholic Church
• Differences based on politics, type of
minister/service, economics, skin color
Education
• Freedom and education inseparable
• Schools built by FB, churches and northern
religious organizations
• Black Teachers
– Preferred by freedmen; northerners resented
– Position of honor and respect
• Black Colleges (HBCUs-270)
– White House Initiative
http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/list/whhbcu/edlite-list.html
White response to education of freedmen
• “Believed” that freedmen uneducable
• Some tolerated education because they
could not stop it
• Refused to attend integrated schools
• Violence
– Control
– Targeted
– Individual/Large scale
Crusade for Political and Civil Rights
• Oct 1864: convention in Syracuse, NY
– AA involvement in political process
• 1865: N/S Whites have power to politically
enfranchise AA
– Lincoln wanted to restore seceded states
• April 1865: Lincoln Assassinated
Presidential Reconstruction under
Andrew Johnson
• Andrew Johnson becomes president after
Lincoln assassinated
-Initially seemed to want to punish South and
befriend freedom
-Background and deeply rooted attitudes
towards Black people resulted in him
catering to White Southerners
Black Codes
• To control freedmen and ensure availability
of subservient, agricultural labor supply
• Restrictions on freedmen
Reconstruction
• Pres. Andrew Johnson • Radical Republicans
– Make the South pay to
restore South
– More militant
– Disturbed by Pres.
Johnson’s abandon of
ex-slaves
– Land/Vote
– Freedmen’s Bureau Bill
– Civil Rights Bill
Fourteenth Amendment
• 1866 passed/1868 ratified
• Guaranteed citizenship to every person
born in the U.S.
• Each person a citizen of the State in which
they reside
• Define rights/protections of citizens in a
State
• Due Process
Radical Reconstruction
• Republicans control Congress and
Reconstruction
• Dismantled state governments in South
• 1st Reconstruction Act
– 5 military districts
– Universal suffrage for men
– Readmission into the Union
AA Politics
• Reconstruction was culmination of AA
struggle to gain legal and political rights
• 1867-AA men & women rushed into
political arena
– Role of women
– Politics elevated in importance
– Republican Party and Union Leagues
Sit-Ins
• Progress does not = contentment and
apathy
• More demands for advancement
– Public Transportation
– Longshoremen
• Organization of the National Colored Labor Union
Reaction of White Southerners
• Opposed radical Reconstruction
• Outraged that AA claimed same legal and
political rights
– Prevailing view of inferiority of AA (279)
• Belief that AA suffrage could be used to
benefits of whites
– Easy to control and manipulate AA voters
The Meaning of Freedom: The Promise of
Reconstruction 1865-1868
Chapter 12