Reconstruction

1. Reconstruction Could the nation come back together? Chapters 7-8 CG#3

2. Abraham Lincoln’s Death Shocked the Nation and left them unprepared!

3. South’s Way of Life was about to Change

4. South

5. Reconstruction • To rebuild the nation after the Civil War in 1865 • South was destroyed physically and emotionally • It was left up to the North to rebuild it financially and emotionally • 4 Million freedmen in the South had no land, jobs, and were illiterate. How would the North help them to move up the social class ladder? • Lincoln, Johnson, and the Radical Republicans in Congress all had different plans on how to rebuild the nation

6. Wade-Davis Bill • Wade-Davis Bill: Took control of Reconstruction from Johnson and gave it to Congress • Congress feared that Johnson would be too LENIENT on the South • Wade-Davis Bill had been pocket vetoed by Lincoln • Congress impeached Johnson because he fired an employee and they said he had violated the Tenure of Office Act

7. Congress • Radical Republicans

8. Radical Republicans • Put the South under military rule- set up 5 districts • Led by Thaddeus Stevens • Wanted to give the freedmen “40 acres and a mule” but the Southerners resisted at every turn • Racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan developed to intimidate people and keep them from voting • Believed that redistributing the land to the freedmen would change the power structure of the South

9. Reconstruction Amendments • 13th: abolished slavery • 14th: “due process,” if you’re born here, you become a citizen • 15th: you cannot be denied the right to vote based on race

10. Southerners Discriminated to keep the freedmen from voting. • Jim Crow laws and black codes • Grandfather clause • Literacy tests • Poll taxes

11. Voting South North • Democrats • Republican

12. North tried to help the South • Freedmen’s Bureau gave food clothes, education to all poor in South • Hiram Revels: 1st African American Senator • Carpetbaggers: teachers, northerners who came south to help rebuild and educate

13. Freedmen • Most stayed on farms and turned to a life of sharecropping and tenant farming • Lived lives of poverty and hardship in the South • Small percentage moved to northern cities to look for jobs • Exodusters moved west to escape persecution in South

14. Who Moved West • African Americans (exodusters) • Mormons • Land-hungry settlers • Entrepreneurs

15. Why People Moved West • Gold Rush (49’ers) • Silver (Comstock Lode) • Land • To escape religious persecution (Mormons) • Social Class Improvement • Dreams of a better life

16. Cowboys • Paid very little • Good with animals • Seasonal work • Drove cattle from one point to another • Long drive was the journey across the plains with cattle • Were responsible for the welfare of the cattle • Open range was ended by barbed wire • Worked from sun-up to sun-down • Did not fight and drink in saloons • Were small physically and ¼ were African American or Mexican American • Movies do not portray them accurately • The cattle were called the longhorns

18. Longhorn Cattle

20. Native Americans • Land encroachments by settlers • Buffalo destroyed by recreational hunters on the trains • Used every part of the buffalo for survival and were destroyed when the buffalo were killed off by 1870 • Leaders like Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce fought for their people unsuccessfully, many broken promises • Forced onto reservations • Ghost Dance • Battle of Little Bighorn: last fight of the Indians for ancestral homelands

21. Transcontinental Railroad • 1869 Promontory Point Utah, US was officially linked from East to West with railroads • Railroads changed the US forever, improving transportation, communication, economy • Enabled people to settle the west and move west very quickly • RR’s and barbed wire ended the cowboys’ way of life forever (ended the open-range)

22. Native Americans

25. End of Reconstruction • Compromise of 1877: The South agreed to elect Rutherford Hayes and in return the North would withdraw all troops in 1877 (this officially ended Reconstruction) • North was tired of spending millions of dollars on a stubborn South • Home rule returned (redemption) to the South and 12 years of Reconstruction came to a stop!

26. Life on the Frontier Myth Reality • Life was like a fairy tale with rolling green prairies and beautiful streams • Life was easy • Life was simple • Families always stayed together • Worked from sun-up to sun-down • Cleared land by hand • People died frequently • Homes were difficult to build • Lived in dirt/grass houses which were dirty and cold (soddies) • Were called “homesteaders” • Used windmills

28. Dawes Severalty Act 1887 Replaced the reservation system with an allotment system Each Indian family was granted up to a 160-acre tract of farmland Not enough land to sustain a family because land was not fertile The farms could not be sold or transferred for 25 years Families were encouraged to send their children to boarding schools Learn to live by the rules of white culture Tragic struggle to retain their culture and ethnicity 1,000’s died in battles

29. Farmers High railroad rates Low prices for crops Poor treatment by big business Began to organize to fight for better treatment Grange

30. Populist Party • People’s Party • William Jennings Bryan made his famous “Cross of Gold Speech” while running for president, but William McKinley won • Farmers wanted to use gold, silver and paper money (bimetallism) and have the gov’t print more paper money to try to drive prices of crops up • Formed by farmers who wanted lower railroad rates, workers who wanted shorter workdays and more pay, bimetallism (silver coinage), and workers’ rights’ in general • Grange: Oliver Kelly • The Populist Movement died off, but reforms were carried out during the Progressive Movement that followed

31. Civil Rights • Booker T. Washington (Tuskegee Institute) • WEB DuBois (doctorate from Harvard) • Ida Wells • Began to fight for rights for African Americans • Pendleton Civil Service Act (required exams for federal jobs)