U.S. History
From Bad to Worse and Worse…..
Reconstruction Era Part 4
When Frederick Douglass moved to Baltimore he wrote “A city slave is almost a freeman,
compared with a slave on a plantation.” Douglass enjoyed the freedom and independence that the Aulds
gave him when he moved off of the plantation. Of all his newly acquired “freedoms”, Douglass seemed
to enjoy reading the most. When Mrs. Auld stopped teaching him to read (and that freedom was taken
away) he became very depressed (he writes of becoming suicidal). Douglass was very upset when he had
to return to the plantation for the valuation process. He wrote about how being back on the plantation
was more difficult for him than the other slaves because he’d had a taste of freedom in Baltimore. When
someone gives you a gift and then takes it away, it can be more painful than if you never had the gift in
the first place. Freedmen had a similar experience during the Reconstruction Era.
Contract System & Sharecropping…
After Johnson repealed Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 (40 acres and a mule), freedmen
had to find another way to find economic independence. Without land of their own, many former
slaves returned to plantations. They would no longer be slaves; they would now earn wages. The
contract system was a step up from slavery because it allowed African-Americans the ability to choose
who and where they would be working. Plantation owners were desperate to find workers at the end of
the war, so it gave former slaves some choices and leverage. African-Americans would choose the best
contracts offered to them. However, the wages they were paid were still very low (there was no such
thing as minimum wage back then). Workers were not allowed to leave the plantations without
permission and workers were often cheated out of their wages by plantation owners. As a result, many
African-Americans turned to sharecropping.
Sharecropping was a system under which a worker rented a plot of land from a wealthy
landowner. The landowner provided workers with tools, seed and housing. When the harvest came, the
landowners would take a portion of the crops as labor. This system gave renters a place to live and
provided landowners with cheap labor. Sharecropping caused many problems. Renters wanted to grow
food to feed their families, but landowners wanted the renters to grow cash crops like cotton and
tobacco. Landowners had final say in determining what crops would be grown. Renters then had to buy
food from stores (usually owned by the same people who owned the land). This meant that
sharecroppers were very dependent on landowners and could not exercise much freedom.
Violence & the KKK…
Southern whites were very unhappy with the rights gained by African-Americans in the years
following the Civil War. It was difficult for them to oppress the freedmen who were protected by the
military presence in the south. In 1866 a group of white southerners formed the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), a
terrorist organization whose main goals were to restore Democratic control to the South and keep
former slaves powerless. These KKK members wore white robes and hoods to hide their identity from
law enforcement officials during the time period when the military still occupied the South.
In Memphis, Tennessee in 1866 a KKK raid resulted in the murders of 46 African-Americans,
many of them were veterans of the Union Army. Two white sympathizers were also murdered on that
day and 5 African-American women were raped, and four churches were burned down. In a raid on New
Orleans later that same year, the KKK killed 35 blacks and 3 whites. An African-American woman
testified about the matter in court stating, “I have been a slave….I saw them kill my husband…he was
shot in the head while he was in bed sick…there was about 20-30 men….”
The violence mounted through the late 1860s and 1870s as the Ku Klux Klan organized raids,
lynchings, beatings and burnings. In Kentucky alone, the National Archives lists 116 acts of violence
between 1867 and 1871 (e.g. Sam Davis hanged by a mob on May 28th, 1868, Silas Woodford age 60 badly
beaten by a disguised mob). Klan victims could find little protection. Military authorities often ignored
the violence (President Johnson had appointed many of them and they were against the concept of
Reconstruction).
Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Hey, Hey, Hey, Good-Bye!
President Johnson fought against many of the reforms that Republicans were trying to pass
during the Reconstruction Era. For example, he chose people who shared the Confederate ideals when
selecting military personnel to oversee the South. The conflicts between Johnson and the Congress was
about to come to a head. In 1867, the Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited the
President from firing government officials without approval from the Senate. In February of 1868,
Johnson fired his Secretary of War without seeking permission from the Senate. Three days later, the
House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson (remember – impeach means to put the president
on trial, not to remove him from office!). The trial went on before the Senate, making it impossible for
Johnson to govern during that time. After several weeks of testimony, the Senate acquitted Johnson by
one vote – meaning he would not be removed from office against his will. In the upcoming election of
1868, Johnson would not even be placed on the Democratic ballot.
Name:
Date:
Core:
U.S. History
From Bad to Worse and Worse…
Reflection Questions
Directions: Use the handout (From Bad to Worse to Worse…Reconstruction Era Part 4) to answer the following
questions.
Fact Check…
1. What was sharecropping? ___________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
2. What was the contract system? ______________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
3. What is the KKK? _________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
4. Compare and contrast sharecropping with slavery. Identify two differences and two similarities.
Similarities
Differences
5. Who was the first president to be impeached? _________________________________________
6. True or False. President Andrew Johnson was removed from office by Congress.
Reader Response…
1. In 1866, a terrorist group known as the Klu Klux Klan emerged in the south. In 1872 U.S.
President Ulysses S. Grant spoke about the goals of the KKK before Congress. He said the
following,
"By force and terror, to prevent all political action not in accord with the views of the members, to deprive
colored citizens of the right to bear arms and of the right of a free ballot, to suppress the schools in which
colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely allied to that of
slavery."
Do you think that the KKK used some of the same “tools of oppression” that slave owners
utilized to de-humanize the people that they’d enslaved? Support your response using
information from Grant’s quote (above) and today’s Mental-Warm-Up (Tools of Oppression &
Tools of Liberation). Identify at least two specific similarities or differences in your response.
________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
4
Exemplary




Insightful, well
organized, and fluent
Deep understanding of
text is demonstrated
Specific references to
text are used to support
ideas
Text references are well
interpreted and clearly
connected to response
3
Proficient




Thoughtful, organized,
and fluent
Clear understanding of
the text is demonstrated
Relevant references to
text are used to support
ideas
Text references are
explained and connected
to response
2
Progressing




Organized and
somewhat fluent
Basic understanding of
text is displayed
At least one relevant
example from text is
used to support ideas
Text references are
somewhat connected to
response
1
Beginning




Disorganized or confusing
Limited or no
understanding of text is
displayed
Limited or no examples
from text are used to
support ideas
Text reference seems
irrelevant to response