Lesson 6: Reconstruction Unit 4: A Nation Divided Lesson 6: Reconstruction

Life in the South Sharecropping: a farming system in which a farmer rents land and equipment from a landowner, raises crops, and pays back the landowner with a portion of the crops Basically, a sharecropper is a landless farmer They were perpetually in debt to the landowner, and to repay that debt, they had to give up most of their crops They had little crops left to make money off of

Cycle of Sharecropping

The North Benefits from Reconstruction Scalawag: Northerners who came to the South to do business (get rich). The South despised them because they thought they were being used! Carpetbagger: Poor “white trash” Southerners who supported Republicans and Reconstruction. (Hated by the South!)

African America Rights in the South Desire for freedom and community led to the growth of AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES 500 freedmen served in State Legislatures during Reconstruction Jim Crow Laws: An attempt to control former slaves and segregate the southern society Attempts to keep freedmen out of politics: Polltax: fee applied to voting Literacy Tests: test to prove literacy before freedmen could vote

Resistance to Racial Equality Ku Klux Klan Secretive organizer Create to resist the equal right to African Americans Used violence to intimidate freedmen and minorities (Catholics, scalawags, Jews) Ex. Lynching, burning crosses Leader was called “Grand Wizard”

Exit Ticket Group Charts Identify and create a poster on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Create the sharecropper cycle, p 416 Success and failures of reconstruction, page 428