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

2. 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

3. Cycle of Sharecropping

4. 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!)

5. 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

6. 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”

7. 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