1. SS8H6c
Analyze the impact of Reconstruction on Georgia and other southern states, emphasizing Freedmen’s Bureau

2. Freedmen’s Bureau Freedmen faced great hardships: Some looked for jobs
Homeless
Uneducated
Nothing but the clothes on their back
Some looked for jobs
Some looked for family and friends
Some traveled just because they could

3. Freedmen’s Bureau March 1865 U.S. Government established
Bureau of Refugees
Freedmen
Abandoned Lands
General Oliver O. Howard was the first commissioner

4. Freedmen’s Bureau
Oliver O. Howard: Later founded Howard University in Washington D.C.

5. Freedmen’s Bureau Original Purpose: St. Augustine Freedmen’s Bureau
To help both former slaves and poor whites cope with everyday problems
Offered clothing, food, and other necessities

6. Freedmen’s Bureau Change of Focus Main focus was education
Set up over 4,000 primary schools
64 industrial schools
74 teacher-training institutions for young African Americans in addition to spending over $400,000 to help establish teacher-training centers

7. One of 3000 schools helped by the Bureau
Bureau spent more than 5 million dollars and by 1865 there were more than 90,000 former slaves enrolled as students in public schools

8. Freedmen’s Bureau
Northerners and missionary societies sent both money and teachers
The American Missionary Association
1867 sponsored the chartering of Georgia’s Atlanta University

9. Freedmen’s Bureau Clark College
The American Baptist Home Mission society organized Morehouse College in Augusta
Moved to Atlanta in 1870
A third Georgia Reconstruction-era school was Clark College in Atlanta, which first opened as a school for children

10. Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming
Landowners provided
House
Farming tools
Animals
Seed and Fertilizer
Workers agreed to
Give the owner a share of the harvest
Tenants usually owned
Agricultural equipment
Farm animals (mules)
Seed and Fertilizer
Tenants agreed to
Pay the landowner a set amount of cash
OR a share of the crop

11. Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming
Until the workers sold their crop, the owners provided
Food
Medicine
Clothing and other supplies
Provisions were made at high prices on credit
Rarely any cash left
Owners often cheated workers to keep them in debt (vicious cycle)
Usually made a small profit

12. Sharecropping v. Tenant Farming
Lives on both sides were very hard
Both systems allowed landowners to keep their farms in operation without having to spend money on labor
Landowners who did not have money to buy seed, fertilizer, and tools borrowed the money and used the crops to back up the loan
Interest on these loans was often more than the crops were worth
Bankers expected farmers to grow cotton or tobacco each year which ruined the soil
Southern Landowners became poorer each year

13. Reconstruction Plans Lincoln Plan Congressional Plan Wade-Davis Bill
“Ten-Percent Plan”: Reconstruction
2 step process
All southerners, except for high-ranking Confederate civil and military leaders, would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance to the United States
When 10% of the voters in each state had taken the oath, the state would be permitted to form a legal government and rejoin the Union
Wade-Davis Bill
All southerners must take an Ironclad Oath to the United States that they never supported the Confederacy
Lincoln did not sign the bill

14. Reconstruction Plans
Lincoln was assassinated before his plan went into effect.
VP Andrew Johnson (NC) became the 17th President
Appointed James Johnson as Georgia’s provisional governor
As a congressman, Johnson had opposed secession

15. Reconstruction Plans Johnson’s Plan
Those who owned property worth more than $20,000 or those who had held high civil or military positions had to apply directly to the president for a pardon
Offered a reward for the arrest of Jefferson Davis
He was captured & imprisoned

16. Reconstruction Plans Problems with President Johnson’s Plan
Fearful that freedmen would be disfranchised
Thought the South deserved a greater punishment
Johnson’s Adjustments:
Southern states had to approve the 13th Amendment which made slavery illegal
Southern states had to nullify their ordinance of secession
Southern states had to promise not to repay the individuals and institutions that helped finance the Confederacy

17. Reconstruction Amendments
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT
Continued the work of the Emancipation Proclamation
It officially abolished slavery
Passed in January 1865
Ratified in December 1865
President Johnson made this a requirement for the southern states to rejoin the Union

18. Reconstruction Amendments
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
The 13th did not abolish discrimination and many southern states, including GA, passed the Black Codes
Granted citizenship to the freedmen and forbade any state from denying anyone the “equal protection of the law”
Passed June 1866
Ratified July 1868

19. Reconstruction Amendments
FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
Granted all male citizens the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”
Passed February 1869
Ratified February 1870

20. Black Legislators in Georgia
1867: African Americans voted for the first time in Georgia
1867:
African Americans helped elect a Republican governor
29 African Americans to the Georgia house of representatives
3 African Americans to the Georgia senate
1868: All African American representatives were expelled
Although the constitution had given them the right to vote, it did not specifically give them the right to hold political office

21. Black Legislators in Georgia
TUNIS G. CAMPBELL, JR.
8th of 10 children born to free black parents in NJ
Participated in the Colored Convention Movement
Commissioned to Port Royals, SC
Oversee the gathering of former slaves
Supervised Georgia land resettlements (including Sapelo)
Registered voters
Justice of the Peace
Delegate to the state conventional congress
State Senator (Liberty, McIntosh, Tattnall Counties)

22. Black Legislators in Georgia
HENRY MCNEAL TURNER
Never a slave, SC
paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner
Church organizer & missionary for the African American Methodist Episcopal Church
Later ranked as a bishop
State legislator, Macon
Advocate for the back-to-Africa emigration

23. Black Legislators in Georgia
AARON A. BRADLEY
Born in SC
Shoemaker who ran away to the North where he became a lawyer
Member of the black delegation to the constitutional convention in Georgia
State Senator (Savannah area)
Rallied for plantation blacks in Savannah to be given land

24. Ku Klux Klan
Began in Pulaski, TN 1865 as a social club for returning soldiers
Quickly changed into a force of terror in Georgia
Purpose was to keep freedmen from exercising their new civil rights
Keep them from voting which would return control of the state to the Democrats
Georgia Act, December 1869
Returned Georgia to military control for the 3rd time. General Alfred Terry became Georgia’s new military commander, and Rufus Bullock became the provisional governor