Life After Slavery PDF

# Lesson 3: Life After Slavery ## The Big Idea During Reconstruction, African Americans gained new political and social rights but continued to face discrimination in many areas. ## Why It Matters Now Many African American institutions, including colleges and churches, were established during Re...

# Lesson 3: Life After Slavery ## The Big Idea During Reconstruction, African Americans gained new political and social rights but continued to face discrimination in many areas. ## Why It Matters Now Many African American institutions, including colleges and churches, were established during Reconstruction. ## Key Terms and People * Hiram Revels * Sharecropping * Tenant Farming ## One American's Story Ned Cobb was born in central Alabama in the mid-1880s. He was the son of a former slave. Growing up, he heard stories from his older relatives about life at the end of the Civil War and during Reconstruction. In their experience, the end of slavery offered great promise, but it did not prove to be exactly what they had been expecting. "My grandmother and other people that I knowed grew up in slavery time, they wasn't satisfied with their freedom.... But they would open up every once in a while and talk about slavery time-they didn't know nothin about no freedom then, didn't know what it was but they wanted it. And when they got it they knew that what they got wasn't what they wanted, it wasn't freedom, really. Had to do whatever the white man directed em to do, couldn't voice their heart's desire." - Ned Cobb, writing as Nate Shaw, from *All God's Dangers* Cobb's grandmother was not alone. Many former slaves found themselves overwhelmed and confused by their new status after the Civil War. Freed after a lifetime of slavery, many found it difficult to adapt to the social, political, and economic changes happening around them. Still, many hoped that their new freedom would lead to better lives. ## Adjusting to Freedom Amid the turmoil of the South during Reconstruction, African Americans looked forward to new opportunities. Slaves had been forbidden to travel without permission, to marry legally, to attend school, and to live and work as they chose. After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the 4 million former slaves gained the chance to take control of their lives. ### Uncertain Status At first, many former slaves were cautious about testing the limits of their freedom. One freedman explained, "We was afraid to move. Just like ... turtles after emancipation. Just stick our heads out to see how the land lay." As the reality of freedom sank in, freed African Americans faced many decisions. Without land, jobs, tools, money, and with few skills besides those of farming, what were they to do? How would they feed and clothe themselves? How and where would they live? ### Traveling For many African Americans, the first step in attaining true freedom was casting off the limits that had been placed on them before the Civil War. For example, slaves had been forbidden to travel without a pass. White planters had enforced that rule by patrolling the roads. During Reconstruction, African Americans took advantage of their new freedom to go where they wanted. One former slave from Texas explained the passion for traveling: "They seemed to want to get closer to freedom, so they'd know what it was-like it was a place or a city." ### New Names As part of their newfound freedom, many former slaves also sought new ways to define their identities. As slaves, most had been given the same last name as their owners. For example, Ned Cobb's father had been a slave of the Cobb family. When they became free, many African Americans chose to change their slave names for new names that cast off their history of servitude and celebrated the opportunities that came with freedom. Some, wanting to reflect the glories of freedom, chose the names of influential leaders from the early days of the United States, such as Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson. In addition, many former slaves insisted on being addressed formally, as Mr. or Mrs. with their last name. Before the war, they had generally been called only by first names. The full address was seen as a break with the past. ### Reunification of Families As part of their new freedom, many newly freed African Americans also sought to locate long-lost relatives. Slavery had split African American families apart. Spouses sometimes lived on different plantations. Children were often separated from their parents. During Reconstruction, many freed African Americans took advantage of their new mobility to search for loved ones. In 1865, for example, one man walked more than 600 miles from Georgia to North Carolina, looking for his wife and children. The Freedmen's Bureau worked to reunite families. African American newspapers printed poignant "Information Wanted" notices about missing relatives. Tragically, in many cases, the lost family members were never found. However, freed persons, who had been denied legal unions under slavery, could now marry legally and raise children without the fear that someone would sell them. For African Americans, reconstructing their families was an important part of establishing an identity as a free people. ## Education Because slaves had been punished if they tried to learn how to read and write, nearly 80 percent of freed African Americans over the age of 20 were illiterate in 1870. During Reconstruction, however, freed people of all ages-grandparents, parents, and children alike-took advantage of their new freedom and sought education. African Americans established educational institutions with assistance from a number of public and private organizations, including the Freedmen's Bureau and various African American churches. They raised money to buy land, build schools, and pay teachers' salaries. By 1870, African Americans had spent more than $1 million on education. Initially, most teachers in black schools were northern whites, about half of whom were women. However, educated African Americans like Robert G. Fitzgerald also became teachers. By 1869, black teachers outnumbered white teachers in these schools. **Education for African Americans** * **Freedmen's School:** Many of the first African American schools, like the one shown here, were established by the Freedmen's Bureau to educate the children of former slaves. * **School Enrollment of 5-to 19-Year-Olds, 1850-1880:** A graph depicting enrollment of white students and black students. **Learning to Read** Among former slaves, younger generations sometimes helped educate their elders. A young woman in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, teaches her mother to read. ## Learning in African American Schools In African American schools, it was not unusual to see small children studying alongside adults and senior citizens. Many elderly African Americans felt that it was never too late to learn to read and write, skills they had longed for all their lives. One school even listed among its first enrollees a 105-year-old who had served in the American Revolution! The efforts of such students paid off. At the end of the Civil War, only 15 percent of African Americans could read and write. By 1880, that figure had risen to 27 percent. In addition to primary and high schools, some organizations wanted to create colleges at which former slaves could seek advanced education. Many of these colleges still operate today. Designated historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), they have since opened their doors to students of all backgrounds, although African Americans are still the majority population at many of them. The first predominantly black college in the South was Shaw College in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was established by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society in 1865 to educate both men and women. More colleges quickly followed, built through the efforts of churches, social organizations, and the Freedmen's Bureau. Among them were such prominent schools as Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia (1867); Howard University in Washington, DC (1867); and the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia (1868), now called Hampton University. Many of these early colleges for African Americans focused on job training and practical skills. A few, however, such as Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, emphasized general education over practical training. Some white southerners, outraged by the idea of educated African Americans, responded violently. In one instance, former slave Washington Eager was murdered because, as his brother explained, he had become "too big a man he [could] write and read and put it down himself." Despite the threat of violence, freed people were determined to learn. By 1877, more than 600,000 African Americans were enrolled in elementary schools. ## Churches and Volunteer Groups During the slavery era, many slaves had attended white churches and camp meetings with their owners. Resenting the preachers who urged them to obey their masters, the slaves had also held their own religious gatherings called "praise meetings." After the Civil War, many African Americans founded their own churches, which were usually Baptist or Methodist. They held services similar to the earlier praise meetings. Because churches were the principal institutions that African Americans fully controlled, African American ministers emerged as influential community leaders. They often played an important role in the broader political life of the country as well. Besides organizing their own schools and churches, freed African Americans formed thousands of volunteer organizations. They established their own fire companies, trade associations, political organizations, and drama groups, to name just a few. These groups not only fostered independence but also provided financial and emotional support for their members. The groups furthermore offered African Americans opportunities to gain the leadership skills that slavery had often denied them. ## New Roles in Politics For many African Americans, their greatest gain following the Civil War was the opportunity to take part in the political system. As slaves, they had not been allowed any say in how their states or country was run, and now they felt they had a chance to remedy that situation. Many hoped that they could improve and protect their newfound freedoms through political activity. ### African Americans as Voters The primary tool for enacting any sort of political change is suffrage. African Americans-who made up the largest group of southern Republicans-gained voting rights as a result of the Fifteenth Amendment. During Reconstruction, African American men registered to vote for the first time; nine out of ten of them supported the Republican Party. Although most former slaves had little experience with politics, and relatively few could read and write, they were eager to exercise their voting rights. "We are not prepared for this suffrage. But we can learn. Give a man tools and let him commence to use them and in time he will earn a trade. So it is with voting. We may not understand it at the start, but in time we shall learn to do our duty." -William Beverly Nash, quoted in *The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell the Story of Reconstruction* In many areas of the South, almost 90 percent of the qualified African American voters voted. Early in 1868, a northerner in Alabama observed that "in defiance of fatigue, hardship, hunger, and threats of employers," African Americans still flocked to the polls in record numbers. ### African American Leaders The period from 1865 to 1877 saw growing African American involvement in politics at all levels. For the first time, African Americans held offices in local, state, and federal government. At first, most African American politicians were freeborn. Many were ministers or teachers who had been educated in the North. By 1867, however, former slaves were winning a greater number of offices. In the early years of Reconstruction, most black officials held minor posts, and the powerful figures in the South's Republican governments were white. As years passed, however, a few black politicians rose to positions of prominence. African Americans filled important local positions, serving as sheriffs and school commissioners. Later, black officials held significant state offices, such as secretary of state. However, these positions were generally appointed ones that had little real power to enact legislation. ## Hiram Revels *(1822-1901)* Hiram Revels of Mississippi (pictured on the far left, with-left to right-African American representatives Benjamin S. Turner of Alabama, Robert C. De Large of South Carolina, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, Jefferson M. Long of Georgia, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina, and Robert Brown Elliott of South Carolina) was born of free parents in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Because he could not obtain an education in the South, he attended Knox College in Illinois. As an African Methodist Episcopal minister, he recruited African Americans to fight for the Union during the Civil War and also served as an army chaplain. In 1865, Revels settled in Mississippi. He served on the Natchez city council and then was elected to Mississippi's state senate in 1869. In 1870, Revels became the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate. Ironically, he held the seat that had once belonged to Jefferson Davis. Eventually, a few African Americans gained offices of national prominence. In 1870, Hiram Revels of Mississippi was elected to the U.S. Senate. Revels was the first African American to serve in either house of Congress. The same year, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina was elected to the House of Representatives. He was the first black member of that body. In Louisiana, P.B.S. Pinchback became the first African American to serve as governor. For about a month beginning in December 1872, Pinchback, who was lieutenant governor at the time, took over as the state's leader when the elected governor was impeached. Leaders like Revels, Rainey, and Pinchback were rare, though. Although there were almost as many black citizens as white citizens in the South, African American officeholders remained in the minority. Only South Carolina had a black majority in the state legislature. No southern state elected an African American governor. Moreover, out of 125 southerners elected to the U.S. Congress during congressional Reconstruction, only 16 of them were African Americans. ## Laws Against Segregation By the end of 1866, most of the Republican southern state governments had repealed the black codes. African American legislators took steps to push social equality a step further by proposing bills to desegregate public transportation. In 1871, Texas passed a law prohibiting railroads from making distinctions between groups of passengers, and several other states followed suit. However, many antisegregation laws were not enforced. State orphanages, for example, usually had separate facilities for white and black children. African Americans themselves focused more on building up the black community than on total integration. By establishing separate African American institutions such as schools, churches, and political and social organizations-they were able to focus on African American leadership and escape the interference of the whites who had so long dominated their lives. ## Economic Opportunities The end of slavery meant a chance for a new economic life for southern African Americans. No longer forced to toil for others, freed slaves had the chance to seek new jobs, often away from the plantations to which they had been tied before. Some African Americans packed up their belongings and set out in search of new opportunities. Others sought to build new lives in places closer to home. ### In Search of New Jobs At the end of the Civil War, thousands of former slaves were eager to leave the plantations that they associated with oppression. Most of them chose to move to southern towns and cities where they could find jobs. From 1865 to 1870, the African American population of the ten largest southern cities doubled. A smaller number of freed slaves moved to the North. Regardless of the region, however, cities usually offered only segregation, poor housing, and low-paying jobs. ### Owning Land The majority of former slaves, however, remained in the rural South. Some continued to work for their former slaveholders, now receiving wages for their work. Others, however, were determined to build their own farms, raising enough food to support themselves and their families. Many of these would-be farmers pinned their hopes on land that had been promised to them during the Civil War. ### 40 Acres and a Mule In January 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War, General Sherman had promised the freed slaves who followed his army 40 acres of land per family and the use of army mules. Soon afterward, about 40,000 freed persons settled on 400,000 abandoned or forfeited acres in coastal Georgia and South Carolina. The freed African Americans farmed their plots until August 1865, when President Johnson ordered that the original landowners be allowed to reclaim their land and evict the former slaves. Many freed African Americans asserted that they deserved part of the planters' land. An Alabama black convention declared, "The property which they hold was nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows." Some Radical Republicans agreed. Thaddeus Stevens called for the government to confiscate plantations and to redistribute part of the land to former slaves. However, many Republicans considered it wrong to seize citizens' private property. As a result, Congress either rejected land-reform proposals or passed weak legislation. An example was the 1866 Southern Homestead Act. Although it set aside 44 million acres in the South for freed blacks and loyal whites, the land was swampy and unsuitable for farming. Furthermore, few homesteaders had the resources-seed, tools, plows, and horses-to farm successfully. Even those African Americans who had the means to purchase land could not always obtain it. Many found landowners unwilling to sell land to them. In part, this was because some white southerners did not want to lose African American workers as a source of cheap labor. They feared that land ownership would give former slaves a degree of economic independence. Still, some freedmen found ways to purchase farms or other land. For example, by 1870, 1 in every 12 African American families in Mississippi owned land. ## Sharecropping: A Cycle of Poverty An illustration depicting the sharecropping system where landowners provide sharecroppers with land and seed for farming. From start to finish, showing how sharecroppers end up with very little profit for their labor due to the system set up by the landowners. ### Sharecropping and Tenant Farming For most African Americans, however, landowning remained a dream. Without land, people could not grow crops to sell or to feed their families. Economic necessity thus forced many former slaves to sign labor contracts with planters. In exchange for wages, housing, and food, freedmen worked in the fields. However, this arrangement did not satisfy either freedmen or planters. Freedmen thought that the wages were too low and that white employers had too much control over them. On the other hand, planters often lacked sufficient cash to pay workers. These conditions led planters and laborers to experiment with two alternative arrangements: sharecropping and tenant farming. In sharecropping, landowners divided their land and gave each worker -either freed African American or poor white - a few acres, along with seed and tools. At harvest time, each worker gave a share of his crop, usually half, to the landowner. This share paid the owner back and ended the arrangement until it was renewed the following year. In theory, "croppers" who saved a little and bought their own tools could drive a better bargain with landowners. They might even rent land for cash from the planters and keep all their harvest, in a system known as tenant farming. Eventually, they might move up the economic ladder to become outright owners of their farms. ## Document-Based Investigation: Historical Source The story of Henry Blake, a sharecropper, highlighting the difficulties faced by the sharecroppers during Reconstruction. They couldn't make much money due to unfair agreements with landowners and ended up trapped in a vicious cycle of debt. ## Lesson 3 Assessment * **Organize Information:** Create a table to identify ways in which life changed for newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction. * **Key Terms and People:** For each key term or person in the lesson, write a sentence explaining its significance. * **Evaluate:** Which accomplishment of African Americans during Reconstruction do you consider most significant? Explain your choice. * Think About: * The development of a free African American community * The lingering effects of slavery * Opportunities for leadership * Efforts to fight discrimination * **Form Generalizations:** What roles did churches and the Freedmen's Bureau play in helping freed slaves adjust to their new lives? * **Analyze Issues:** Thaddeus Stevens believed that giving land to former slaves was more important than giving them the vote. Do you agree or disagree? Why? * **Summarize:** Describe the gains made by African American politicians at various levels of government. What limitations did African American politicians face?