Georgia and the American Experience

1. Georgia and the American Experience Chapter 9: 1866-1889 Reconstruction and the New South Study Presentation Mr. Smith’s Classes

2. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years Section 4: The New South

3. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What were Lincoln’s plans for rebuilding the South after the Civil War?

4. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • What words do I need to know? • freedmen • Freedmen’s Bureau • Reconstruction • disfranchise • Thirteenth Amendment • Nullify • assassinated

5. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • What people do I need to know? • Abraham Lincoln • John Wilkes Booth • Andrew Johnson

6. Conditions in Georgia at the end of the war: • farms were in ruins • homes, railways, bridges,roads were destroyed or in need of repair • not enough food • banks were closed – Confederate money was worthless • the state owed $20,000,000 in war debt • 25,000 Georgians had died of wounds or disease – many more were crippled and could not work

7. Atlanta at the End of the War

8. The Freedmen • Problems of freedmen (former slaves): • homeless • hungry • uneducated • free for the 1st time • no property or goods • Many former slaves feared re-enslavement • Most whites had difficulty treating freeman as free persons

9. A Freedmen’s School Run by the American Missionary Association

10. The Freedmen’s Bureau • Started as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands by U.S. government in 1865 • Its job was to help freed slaves, former soldiers, and poor whites with basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter • The purpose shifted to education • Set up 4,000 primary schools • Started industrial schools for jobs training • Started teacher-training schools • Missionaries started schools like Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Clark College

11. Savannah’s Beach High School began as the Beach Institute, a school built by the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War. This school was also run by the American Missionary Association.

12. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction • Lincoln wanted to rebuild and return the South to the Union as soon as possible • “Reconstruction” would have two parts: • Southerners would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance; • When 10% of voters had taken the oath, the state could rejoin the Union and form a state government. • Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 during a play at Ford’s Theater by actor John Wilkes Booth. • Vice President Andrew Johnson took over as President.

13. Ford’s Theater, Washington, DC Presidential Box, Ford’s Theater

14. Booth entered the Presidential Box and fired this derringer at point blank range. The bullet entered behind the left ear, tore diagonally through the brain, and lodged behind Lincoln’s right eye.

15. Lincoln was carried to the Peterson House across the street from the theater, where he died early the next morning.

16. Booth and his accomplices immediately became the objects of a huge manhunt.

17. Eight people were convicted for Lincoln’s murder; four received the death sentence.

18. Mary Surratt became the first woman to be executed by the United States.

19. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Abraham Lincoln 2nd Inaugural Address

20. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction • Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the South was challenged. Some northerners called “Radical Republicans” or “Jacobins” thought the South should be more severely punished. • The Radical Republicans wanted to make sure the freedmen retained their new rights. • Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured and imprisoned.

21. Jefferson Davis was captured in Irwinville, GA.

22. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • In addition to Lincoln’s requirements, President Johnson added a few more. Southern states had to: • approve (ratify) the 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery); • nullify their ordinances of secession; • promise not to repay money borrowed during the war.

23. Johnson became the first president to be impeached. He avoided conviction by a single vote. President Andrew Johnson

25. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What changes occurred in Georgia during Reconstruction?

26. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What words do I need to know? • provisional • discrimination • Black Codes • Fourteenth Amendment • carpetbagger • scalawag • Ku Klux Klan

27. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What words do I need to know? • suffrage • Georgia Act • Fifteenth Amendment • impeach • sharecropping • credit • tenant farming

28. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What people do I need to know? • James Johnson • General John Pope • Henry McNeal Turner

29. The Constitutional Convention of 1865 • President Johnson appointed James Johnson as Georgia’s provisional Governor. • Governor Johnson held a Constitutional Convention. The representatives voted to abolish slavery and repeal the ordinance of secession. • Elections were held in November 1865 for a new legislature. • The General Assembly voted to extend rights to freedmen.

30. Black Codes Black Codes were laws passed to keep freedmen from having the same rights as whites. The Black Codes: • Didn’t allow blacks the same jobs as whites, the right to vote, the right to marry a white person, jury service, or the right to testify. • Allowed whipping as punishment, set work hours at sunrise to sunset six days per week, and allowed blacks to be jailed if they didn’t have a job.

31. Congressional Reconstruction • Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black Codes, so it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law gave: • citizenship to all freedmen; • the federal government power to intervene any time civil rights were taken from freedmen. • The 14th Amendment was passed granting citizenship to freedmen and required “equal protection under the law.”

32. Congressional Reconstruction • Congress required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment. • Georgia and most of the other southern states refused. • Congress abolished these states’ governments and put them under military rule. • Georgia was ruled by General John Pope. • Pope was required to register all male voters – black and white. These voters would elect new representatives to form a new state government.

33. Military districts in the South after the Civil War. In which district was Georgia placed?

34. Constitutional Convention of 1867 • Georgia male voters elected delegates to the convention to create a new state constitution. • Delegates were carpetbaggers (northerners who had moved south), scalawags (southerners who sided with the Republicans), and blacks. • Accomplishments of the Convention: • A new constitution ensuring civil rights for all citizens; • Free public education for all children; • Women were allowed to control their own property. • Georgia had satisfied Congress, so General Pope and his troops left the state.

35. Early African American schools were primarily vocational in nature. In this 1939 photograph, boys at the Woodville School are being trained in agricultural techniques.

36. African Americans in Politics • The election of 1867 was the first time African Americans had voted. • Several African Americans were elected to Georgia’s General Assembly. • Rev. Henry McNeal Turner was one of the first black men elected in Georgia. • The African Americans elected to the General Assembly were expelled in 1868. • It was argued by whites that civil rights laws gave blacks the right to vote but not to be elected.

37. Ku Klux Klan • Secret organization – originally started in Pulaski, TN as a social club for men returning from the war. • Members hid behind robes and masks. • The group intimidated blacks to keep them from voting. • As a result, Congress passed “The Georgia Act” and sent troops back to Georgia. • The act required Georgia to pass the 15th Amendment giving all males the right to vote.

38. Economic Reconstruction • Without slaves, landowners needed laborers to work their large farms. • Two systems emerged: tenant farming and sharecropping. • Cotton was Georgia’s most important crop. • Continuous growing of tobacco and cotton ruined the soil on many farms. • Railroads expanded across the state. • Savannah and Brunswick became important shipping ports. • Atlanta began its growth into an important business center.

39. Sharecropping – a Form of Virtual Slavery Land, house…………………………..$100.00 Draught animal……………………… $ 50.00 Tools, seed……………………………$ 50.00 $200.00 Value of crop…………………………$600.00 50% Share……………………………$300.00 Amount owed to landowner….………$200.00 Sharecropper’s profit…………………$100.00 “Bad news! The crop only brought $300.00!” Land, house…………………………..$100.00 Draught animal……………………… $ 50.00 Tools, seed……………………………$ 50.00 Amount owed from previous year…… 250.00 $450.00 Amount earned by sharecropper: $150.00 Amount owed by sharecropper: -$450.00 New amount of debt: -$300.00

40. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/photos.htmhttp://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/photos.htm

41. Tenant Farming and Sharecropping

42. The End of Reconstruction • The African Americans who had been expelled from the General Assembly in 1868 were readmitted by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1870. • The Assembly approved the 14th and 15th Amendments. • Georgia was readmitted to the Union, again, ending Reconstruction.

43. Compromise of 1877 • In the presidential election of 1876, neither side • won a majority of electoral votes. In exchange • for the White House, Republicans would agree • to • the following: • To withdraw federal soldiers from their • remaining positions in the South • To enact federal legislation that would spur industrialization in the South • To appoint Democrats to patronage positions in the South • To appoint a Democrat to the president’s cabinet. • The Compromise of 1877 would have heavy consequences for African Americans in the South.

44. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • How did Georgians work to improve their state after Reconstruction?

45. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • What words do I need to know? • redemption • white supremacy • Bourbon Triumvirate • ally • temperance • convict lease system

46. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • What people do I need to know? • Joseph E. Brown • Alfred H. Colquitt • John B. Gordon • Rebecca Latimer Felton • Tom Watson

47. The Bourbon Triumvirate • Democrats controlled Georgia’s government after Reconstruction. • Powerful Democratic leaders, known as the “Bourbon Triumvirate” were Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon. • Their goals were: • expand Georgia’s economy and ties with industries in the North; • maintain the tradition of white supremacy.

48. Decline of the Bourbon Triumvirate • “Independent Democrats” criticized the Bourbons for not attending to the needs of the poor or improve education and working conditions in factories. • Leaders William and Rebecca Felton worked to improve conditions for poor Georgians using newspapers to highlight problems in the state. • The convict lease system “rented” prisoners to companies to use as workers. It took many years for the poor conditions the prisoners endured to be brought to light and changed.

49. Sharecropping, tenant farming, and the convict lease system were all forms of virtual slavery.