New South
Chapter 15
The aftermath of war and emancipation
Southern towns and fields ruined, many whites stripped of slaves and capital, currency worthless, and little property.
More than 258,000 confederate soldiers that died in the war constituted 20 percent of the white male population in the region.
Mourning of the dead and the old south brought southerners to romanticize the “lost cause” and reinforce many whites to protect what remained of their ruined world.
“Lost Cause”
http://vimeo.com/56406475
Continued
While the white southerners were in turmoil over their lost land and belongings, the 4 million men and women being released from bondage now had nowhere to go.
The blacks and whites now faced how they were going to define the meaning of what freedom meant
Competing Notions of
Freedom
For many African Americans freedom meant equality, rights and protections and a redistribution of economic resources, which they felt that they rightfully earned.
African Americans started to develop their own way of life and were separating from whites and creating communities that included their own churches and schools, free of white control. Continued
For white southerners the meaning of freedom meant that they had the power to control their own destinies without the north intervening.
Southerners wanted to still have a slave like system that would keep African American workers tied to plantations legally.
March 1865 Congress created Freedmen’s
Bureau to distribute food, create schools, and help poor whites.
Issues of Reconstruction
Political issues when Southern states rejoined
Union because Democrats would be reunited
This would Threaten Republic nationalistic legislation for railroads, tariffs, bank and currency. Many Northerners wished to see the
South punished for suffering rebellion caused
Republican split between Conservatives and
Radicals.
Conservatives wanted abolition but
few