Name:_________________________________
Date:____________
Period:___________
Reconstruction DBQ Portfolio Project
Part 1
Document Analysis Packet
Historical Context:
The Civil War may have settled some significant national problems, but it created many
more. Yes, slavery was abolished, secession had been defeated, and the Union had been
preserved. But the cost of the Union victory- in lives lost, destroyed property, and sectional
bitterness- was staggering and created huge new problems. Perhaps the most challenging
task facing our nation was the status of four million newly freed slaves. Congress attempted
to ensure the freedom and equality of freed slaves through several amendments and acts,
but was it enough?
Directions: Your task is to complete a DBQ Essay. The steps include reading the historical
context, and use your knowledge of the time period and the sources provided to answer the
following questions. This should give you the evidence you need to write a well-structured
essay on the Reconstruction time period.
Essay Prompt: The Constitution set out the standard for equality following the
Civil War; how did Reconstruction fail that standard politically, socially, or
economically?
Due Dates:
Part 1- Document Analysis
___________
Part 2- Rough Draft
___________
Part 3- Type Rough Draft and Complete Adult Edit
___________
Part 4- Final Paper Submission
___________
Part1- Document Analysis
DOCUMENT 1
Amendment 13:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or and place subject to their jurisdiction.....
Amendment 14:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws....
Amendment 15:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by
any State on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.......
SOURCE: U. S. Constitution.
1. What was the purpose of the 13th amendment?______________________________________
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2. What was the purpose of the 14th amendment? _____________________________________
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3. What was the purpose of the 15th amendment? _____________________________________
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4. How did these amendments try to ensure the rights of freed African Americans in the
USA? ______________________________________________________________________________
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Document 2
5.
Document 3
6.
Document 4
Source: Protest of the Freedmen of Edisto Island, South Carolina to General Howard, October
1865
Note: This document is in the original spelling in which it was written.
Homesteads - lands to settle and live on
General we want Homesteads; we were promised homesteads by the government; If It does
not carry out the promises Its agents made to us, If the government Haveing concluded to
befriend Its late enemies and to neglect to observe the principles of common faith between
Its self and us Its allies In the war you said was over, now takes away from them all right to the
soil they stand upon save such as they can get by again working for your late and thier all
time enemies - If the government does so we are left In a more unpleasant condition than
our former.
we are at the mercy of those who are combined to prevent us from getting land enough to
lay our Fathers bones upon.
You will see this Is not the condition of really freemen.
In behalf of the people
Committee: Henry Bram, Ishmael Moultrie, Yates Sampson
7. Who wrote this protest letter? __________________________________________________________
8. What do the authors of this passage believe they are entitled to? Why? __________________
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9. What do the authors fear will happen if their complaint is ignored? ______________________
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Document 5
Source: W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America. DuBois was a famous advocate for
African American rights and equality
"But the decisive influence was the systematic and overwhelming economic pressure.
Negroes who wanted work must not dabble in politics. Negroes who wanted to increase
their income must not agitate the Negro problem. . . in order to earn a living, the American
Negro was compelled to give up his political power."
-- Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America
10. According to DuBois, why did freedmen stop voting? __________________________________
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Document 6
Source: In the years following the Civil War - throughout the South -state, city, and town governments passed
laws to restrict the rights of free African-American men and women. These laws were often called “Black
Codes.” The example below of “Black Codes” comes from laws passed in Opelousas, Louisiana immediately
after the Civil War.
1. "No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas
without special permission from his employers. Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work for
two days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars.”
2. “No negro or freedman shall be permitted to rent or keep a house in town under any
circumstances. No negro or freedman shall live within the town who does not work for some
white person or former owner.”
3. “No public meetings of negroes or freedmen shall be allowed within the town.”
4. “No freedman shall be allowed to carry firearms, or any kind of weapons. No freedman shall
sell or exchange any article of merchandise within the limits of Opelousas without permission in
writing from his employer.”
5. “Every negro is to be in the service of (work for) some white person, or former owner.”
11. Explain at least 3 ways the Black Codes tried to restrict the freedoms of freed African Americans.
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Document 7
12. Based on the document
above and your knowledge of
U.S. history, what was the real end
result of sharecropping?
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Document 8
Source: Albion Tourgee, Letter on Ku Klux Klan Activities. New York Tribune, May 1870.
Note: Tourgee was a white, Northern soldier who settled in North Carolina after the War. He served as a judge
during Reconstruction and wrote this letter to the North Carolina Republican Senator, Joseph Carter
Abbott.
It is my mournful duty to inform you that our friend John W. Stephens, State Senator from Caswell,
is dead. He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux in the Grand Jury room of the Court House on
Saturday… He was stabbed five or six times, and then hanged on a hook in the Grand Jury room…
Another brave, honest Republican citizen has met his fate at the hands of these fiends…
I have very little doubt that I shall be one of the next victims. My steps have been dogged for
months, and only a good opportunity has been wanting to secure to me the fate which Stephens has
just met… I say to you plainly that any member of Congress who, especially if from the South, does
not support, advocate, and urge immediate, active, and thorough measures to put an end to these
outrages…is a coward, a traitor, or a fool.
13. What group(s) is the KKK threatening?
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14. According to Tourgee, what types of people are being attacked by the KKK? Why would the KKK
attack these people?
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Document 9
Source: Abram Colby, testimony to a joint House and Senate Committee in 1872.
Note: Colby was a former slave who was elected to the Georgia State legislature during Reconstruction.
Colby: On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed,
took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to
me, "Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?" I said, "If there was an
election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket." They set in and whipped me a thousand licks
more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them.
15. Why did the KKK attack Abram Colby?
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16. What seems to be the ultimate goal of the
KKK?
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Document 10
Northern artist’s portrayal of the South Carolina State Legislature during Reconstruction.
Source: The Cover of Harper’s Weekly,
March 14, 1874
17. How does the image above
depict black politicians in the South?
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18. How does this cartoon show
racism existed in the North?
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Document 11
In January 1866, soon after the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, radical Republicans in Congress began
arguing that freedmen should be allowed to vote on equal terms with whites. The following excerpts come
from the speech of Pennsylvania Congressman Benjamin Boyer, a Democrat who opposed the bill to allow
African Americans the right to vote in the District of Columbia.
It is common for the advocates of Negro suffrage to assume that the color of the Negro is the main obstacle to
his admission to political equality… But it is not the complexion of the Negro that degrades him… {the Negro is]
a race by nature inferior in mental caliber… the Negroes are not equals of white Americans, and are not
entitled… to participate in the Government of this country…
19. Why, according to Congressman Boyer, should African Americans be denied the right to vote? ____________
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20. Do you suppose that this racist viewpoint was widely held at this time? Explain.
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Document 12
Susie Taylor King, a free black woman: Excerpts from her Memoir- Reminiscences of My Life
When we read almost every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South, I
sometimes ask, "Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the full sense of the word, or has it
not made our condition more hopeless?"
In this "land of the free" we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary
wrong conceived in the brain of the negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a
government which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to me. They say, "One
flag, one nation, one country indivisible." Is this true? Can we say this truthfully, when one race is
allowed to burn, hang, and inflict the most horrible torture weekly, monthly, on another? No, we
cannot sing, "My country, 't is of thee, Sweet land of Liberty"! It is hollow mockery. The Southland laws
are all on the side of the white, and they do just as they like to the negro, whether in the right or not.
21. How does this excerpt from Susie Taylor King's memoir suggest that black Americans are
still not free? _____________________________________________________________________________
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Coding Chart
For each document decide whether it represents a social, economic, or
political failure
Document Code: Political,
Reason for code, evidence or explanation
Number
Social, Economic
1
2
3
4
5
6
Document Code: Political,
Reason for code, evidence or explanation
Number
Social, Economic
7
8
9
10
11
12