After the Civil War the United States of America had lots of cleaning up to do especially in the south. Now that slaves were free, citizens were having to change a lot of their daily routines and slaves were having to find work to build up their own families. Many ex slaves began to become sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Sharecroppers were people who farmed other people's land and gives usually half of their crops to the landowner. Sharecroppers were very poor and rarely had any chance of saving money. Tenant farmers had a little bit of a better chance of making it rather than sharecroppers. Tenant farmers supplied their own equipment or they had their own animals but farmed on someone else's land. Tenant farmers also had to pay back the landowners through cash or portions of their crops. There also were organizations that tried to help and support the black people such as The Freedman's Bureau. The Freedman's Bureau was formed by the Radical Republicans and served to help protect the black people's rights and encouraged them to get educations. Sometimes though they had to get the Federal Government to step in and help. For example, Henry McNal Turner and other black legislators tried to be a part of the Georgia General Assembly but were rejected by the Democrats. The Democrats thought that since they were black they didnt have the right to hold office, but the Federal Government protested and made the Democrats let the black legislators return to their seats.
The main plans for reconstruction was:
- Return to Union
- Get the South to take an oath of allegiance
- Approve 13th, and 14th amendments
- Nullify the option of secession
- Place states under military rule
There ended up being three new amendments added: the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth. The thirteenth amendment forbid slavery; the fourteenth amendment granted citizenship to all blacks and promised protection under the law, and the fifteenth amendment granted the right to vote for all men no matter what.
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