1. Teacher Notes
None

2. Lesson 18.2a: Reconstruction and Daily Life

3. Essential Question How did the
4 million slaves freed as a result of the Civil War make the transition from slave to free.

4. Vocabulary transition:
a process of changing from one position, stage, or situation to another.

5. What we Already Know
Before the Civil War, it was illegal in the South to teach slaves to read and write.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

6. What we Already Know
Slaves could not move from place to place without a written pass.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

7. What we Already Know
Part of President Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan was to create the Freedmen’s Bureau to help former slaves adjust to their new lives.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

8. Responding to Freedom
African Americans’ first reaction to freedom, since they no longer needed passes to travel, was to leave the plantations.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

9. Responding to Freedom
Some former slaves returned to the places where they were born. Others went in search of parents, children and family members who had been sold to other owners.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

10. Responding to Freedom
Others went looking for more economic opportunity in the North and West.
Still others traveled just because they could.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

11. Responding to Freedom
Freedom allowed African Americans to strengthen their family ties.
They could now marry legally.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

12. Responding to Freedom
They could raise families without fearing that their children might be sold.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

13. Responding to Freedom
Many families adopted children of dead relatives and friends to keep family ties strong.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

14. A and B Discuss
If you spent your entire life as a slave on a plantation and you were suddenly given your freedom: what would you do, where would you go and why? What factors might influence your decision?

15. Starting Schools
With freedom, African Americans could now work to provide for their families, not for an owner’s benefit.

16. Starting Schools
Economic independence, however, could not come until they learned to read and write.

17. Starting Schools
Both children and adults flocked to Freedmen’s schools started by the Freedmen’s Bureau, Northern missionary
groups, and African-American organizations.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

18. Starting Schools
Freed people in cities held classes in warehouses, billiard rooms, and former slave markets.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

19. Starting Schools
In rural areas, classes were held in churches and homes.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

20. Starting Schools
More than 150,000 students were attending 3,000 schools by 1869, and about 10 percent of the South’s African-American adults could read.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

21. Starting Schools A number of them became teachers themselves.
Northern teachers, black and white, also went South to teach freed people
Mayflower Compact = self rule

22. Starting Schools
Children who went to school often taught their parents to read at home.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

23. Starting Schools
Many white Southerners, however, worked against these teachers’ efforts. White racists intimidated black students, burned freedmen’s schools and even killed
teachers in some parts of the South. Despite these setbacks, African Americans kept working toward an education.
Mayflower Compact = self rule

24. Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

25. How did freedom strengthen African American families?
A. Freedmen could marry legally.
B. African American couples could now have as many children as they wished.
C. Former slaves could try to locate lost family members.
D. Parents could raise their children without the fear of them being sold.
(Choose all that are correct.)

26. What organization served as the foundation for African American education during Reconstruction?
A. The home, where they learned from their parents and other older relatives.
B. The United Negro College Association founded by former abolitionists and wealthy free blacks.
C. School systems established by the Freedmen's Bureau, missionaries or African American organizations.
D. The local black church system, had previously been educating slaves illegally.

27. A and B Discuss
Which approach do you think was better for putting the country back together; Lincoln’s very lenient plan, Johnson’s plan , the harsh plan or the Radical Republicans or some combination?