Civil War....1860-1900?

Question

I'm doing a DBQ and I'm on the essay part. Well the question is:

"Between 1860 and 1900, life for blacks in America improved dramatically. Assess the truth of this statement and write a well developed essay exspressing your beliefs"

I have no idea what to write because....I honestly don't think anything improved. So...I was wondering if someone can give me any ideas. Plz and thanks

Answer 1

Start with "Reconstruction" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction

Answer 2

The thing that really changed for blacks in America during the civil war era is the issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln took a huge step in abolishing slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, which stated that any state still declaring rebellion against the US after January 1st 1863 would officially have all of there slaves declared free. So basically with the 13th amendment to the constitution slavery was abolished everywhere in the united states but that wasn't until 1865. It took a while for the House of Representatives and the correct number of states to get behind the bill and vote/ratify it into law. Another victory for blacks during that period was the civil rights act in 1866. Basically what it said was that anyone born in the united states would now be a citizen of the united states. But with all of these laws being passed there was also the creation of a group called the KKK. Now the KKK was against most of the laws passed by the United States government giving freedom to blacks and after 1900 it gained eminence popularity in the south. But even before 1900 it had started to gain popularity. The rebirth of the KKK happened in 1866 as a resistance to the reconstruction of the nation. At first they were not an anti-black group but within a couple of years they quickly turned into a violent anti-black group. However the group was finally disbanded by 1870 because the public saw them as one of the reasons for the northern troops extended occupation of the south. A second KKK group came about in 1915 and that is the one you hear about in history. They were anti-civil rights and anti-blacks. They participated in lynchings, killings and bombings and they are known today as an extremest hate group that preaches white supremacy. Another thing that went against the blacks was the Jim Crow laws which were created and enforced starting around 1876. These Jim Crow Laws were designed to take the rights that the federal government was trying to give blacks away from them at the state and local levels. The laws segregated whites and blacks and ultimately took away blacks rights to freedom. For example in 1918 blacks were given the right to vote but they weren't actually allowed in the voting chambers in the south until the 1950's or 1960's. Well I hope this information helps you with your essay.

Answer 3

After the Civil War, blacks could vote, own property, get an education and practice many professions that were closed to them before. They could get married and raise their children without fear of family members being sold away. Colleges especially for blacks opened throughout the south. Many blacks became teachers and dedicated their lives to improving the lives of other African-Americans. People like Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver showed blacks and whites alike that race was no barrier to accomplishment. Their were more African-Americans in congress during this period than there are now. Many African-Americans took part in the westward movement after the Civil War, claimed land and became farmers or ranchers. African-Americans were accepted into all the branches of the military and found opportunities for education, training and success. For a black man, the America of 1870 was a vastly better place than the America of 1850.

Answer 4

The question asks that you asses the truth of the statement and express your beliefs.
I agree that little improved.
So state that you feel that the statement is false and then tell why.
Example: blacks gained the right o vote but weren't allowed to do so by oppressive whites in the south.

Answer 5

Here are several links that you need to go through in order to find the answer to your question. Good luck.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-US&q=life+of+black+people+1860-1900&btnG=Search

Answer 6

If you look at my answers to anything with the War you'll see I defend the South with my heart and soul. However the era I can't and won't is from 1866 to 1961, I will say it is not entirely the Souths fault but the way freedom for Blacks was handled. The following is from one of my papers and should help you. (I would take your teacher aside and ask them if they are serious as the basic is untrue, if anything things got worse. Many went North only to find the same thing they were trying to flee.

". Blacks as much of the country have been led to believe the war was over slavery and thus with “FREEDOM” they were free. Recent studies have show the manufacturing North might have led Lincoln to war to free up the slaves so they could replace a workforce that was chambering for more pay and rights. Consider the famous story forty acres and a mule. On March 3, 1865, just weeks before the end of the Civil War and almost a year prior to the ratification of the 13th Amendment the Freedmen's Bureau was created by Congress. Originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, the Freedmen's Bureau was responsible for, among other things, "the supervision and management of all abandoned lands . . . ..the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States."

Also according to Section 4 of the First Freedmen's Bureau Act, this agency "shall have authority to set apart for use of loyal refugees and freedmen such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise; and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid there shall be assigned not more than 40 acres of such land."
Introduced into Congress by Thaddeus Stevens this portion of the Freedmen's Bureau Act was defeated by Congress on February 5, 1866 "by a vote of 126 to 36." Lands which had been distributed to freedmen were reclaimed and returned to the previous owners.

It should be noted that there is no mention of providing the freedmen with a mule (or any other type of animal) in any portion of this legislature. So the question remains in part unanswered. What is the origin of the promised 40 acres and a mule?

The second possibility for the basis of the 'promise' has to do with the efforts of the War Department to furnish accoutrements for the thousands of freedmen who assisted General Sherman in his triumphant march across Georgia. According to Claude F. Oubre in his book Forty Acres and a Mule, General Tecumseh Sherman, acting under an edict from the War Department, issued Special Field Order No. 15. Promulgated on January 16, 1865, after Sherman had conferred with 20 black ministers and obtained the approval of the War Department, Special Order No. 15 provided that:

"The islands of Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering St. Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of [N]egroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States."

The land was then divided into 40-acre tracts. Sherman then issued orders to General Saxton to distribute the plots and processory titles to the head of each family of the freedmen. There were no mules included in the order, so where did the "and a mule" come from? Shortly after Stanton left, Sherman's commissary man came to him complaining that he had a large number of broken down mules for which he had no means of disposal. Sherman sent the useless animals to Saxton for distribution along with the land.

"By June, 1865 approximately 40,000 freedmen had been allocated 400,000 acres of land." However, by September, 1865 former owners of the land reserved by Sherman "demanded the same rights afforded returning rebels in other states."

After Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson became President. One of his first acts was to rescind Special Military Order No. 15 because of the constitutional violations that it created. Former slave owners were then exempted from the initial general amnesty given to them, and instead secured special pardons from President Johnson, who broke the promise made to the freedmen when he ordered the processory titles rescinded and the land returned to the white plantation owners. Johnson gave little or no regard to the fate of the former slaves

From the viewpoint of the former slaves, who believed that they were owed this property, their eviction from land was seen as another example of ill treatment. The illegality of the promise was not their concern, but from that late war incident grew an urban legend that survives into the present day.

Dismayed, like many, Saxton wrote Oliver O. Howard (Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau) stating:

"The lands which have been taken possession of by this bureau have been solemnly pledged to the freedmen. The law of Congress has been published to them, and all agents of the bureau acting under your order have provided lands to these freedmen . . . . I sincerely trust that the government will never break its faith with a single one of these colonists by driving him from the home which he was provided. It is of vital importance that our promises made to freedmen should be faithfully kept . . . . The freedmen were promised the protection of the government in their possession. This order was issued under great military necessity with the approval of the War Department . . . . More than 40,000 freedmen have been provided with homes under its promises. I cannot break faith with them now by recommending the restoration of any of these lands. In my opinion this order of General Sherman is as binding as a statute."

Saxton's pleas were to no avail. The freedmen were ultimately summarily removed from the land. There were however, numerous individuals and organizations which believed the freedmen were entitled to land. Their conviction in this belief was not easily thwarted. Between 1865-9 countless alternatives for solving this matter were proposed and presented to Congress as well as President Johnson. The motivations for these proposals were as varied as the propositions themselves. They ranged from a sincere belief that the freedmen were entitled to land, to fear of violence, resistance to social, economic and political equality, concern about miscegeny, attempts to purge the country of the burden of freedmen on the doles, economic gain and to eliminate any competition they might present for employment.

For instance, quartermaster M.C. Megis devised a plan which would enable the freedmen to secure land in the South. Simply put he suggested that:

1) As a condition of receiving pardons, southerners, whose net worth exceeded $20,000 and were not recipients of an automatic pardon as a result of Johnson's amnesty proclamation, give to each head of family of their former slaves from 5 to 10 acres of land.
2) The freedmen would receive full title to the land with the stipulation that the land could not be alienated during the life time of the grantee."

President Johnson chose not to adopt this recommendation. However, according to Oubre, Megis' proposal may have been the inspiration for Thaddeus Stevens' confiscation plan (one of the many he proposed for black reparations). Just and well thought out I feel had it been approved Stevens' proposal may have provided a more equal distribution of wealth. The primary points of Stevens' 'confiscation plan' according to Oubre are as follows:

1) The government would confiscate the property of all former slaveholders who owned more than 200 acres of land.
2) The property seized would have been allocated to the freedmen in lots of 40 acres.
3) The remaining land would be sold and the monies would be used to remunerate loyalists whose property had been seized destroyed or damaged as a result of the war.
4) Any remaining funds would be utilized to augment the pensions of Union soldiers and to pay the national debt.

Yet another proposal suggested that the government transport the freedmen west and colonize them along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad. It was argued that to do so would prove beneficial for the railroad as well as the freedmen. The freedmen would have their land. The railroad would have both an accessible labor force and someone to protect the trains from Indian attack Additionally, adopting this particular proposal would also bode well for the government. permitting it to keep its promise to provide land for the freedmen. Simultaneously, according to Carl Schurz sand John Sprage, "this plan would serve to remove some of the "surplus" black [people] from the South."

The American Missionary Association requested, to no avail, that President Johnson reserve the land promised to the freedmen. If that was not a suitable option they further petitioned that the freedmen be provided with transportation to homestead lands in the west and provided with rations enough to sustain them until crops could be yielded.

Concerned with the burgeoning African American population in Virginia, Orlando Brown proposed, that some 10,000 African American soldiers stationed in Texas, might be provided with a land bounty in Texas if they remained there and sent for their families. A similar proposal was made by "Sergeant S.H. Smothers, an African American soldier from Indiana serving with the 25th Army Corps in Texas."

But President Johnson seemed to be determined to make sure that freedmen received no land. He mercilessly vetoed any proposal having to do with providing land to the freedmen that reached his desk. Finally, Congress overrode his veto and passed a bill to extend the life of the Freedmen's Bureau. However, it contained no provision for granting land to the freedmen, other than to provide them access to the Southern Homestead Act at the standard rates of purchase. May-be I can best sum it up by a quote from Grant: “The sole object of this was is to restore the Union. Should I be convinced it had any other object, or that the Government designs using its soldiers to execute the wishes of the abolitionists, I pledge to you my honor as a man and as a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side”.

That and this statement about the Klan shows you the plight of the Afro Americans (still I guess it was better then Lincolns plan to ship them to the Amazons) There were three Klans the first fought reconstruction and yankee brutality. The Second Communist, Jews, Gays and scattered foreigners. The third well you know about them.



God Bless You and Our Southern People.