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African Americans After Reconstruction Essay

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Though technically free after the Civil War, black people were often still bound to plantation owners during reconstruction. Slaves who had had no freedom beforehand did not have jobs and were therefore not able to up and leave their homes. Plantation owners who were looking for cheap labor after losing their slaves took advantage of this situation and created sharecropping, which allowed for freed slaves to rent land in exchange for tending the crops and giving a share of what they harvested to the owner (Sharecropping: Slavery by Another Name). There were good years and bad years for harvesting, and if sharecroppers were unable to produce a certain amount of crop in one year, they became indebted to the landowner and were unable to leave the plantation. Laws catering to the landowners were put in place that prevented sharecroppers from being able to move off of the plantation if they were in debt and also made it illegal for sharecroppers to sell any part of their …show more content…

Post Civil War, freed slaves were not allowed to vote. The democratic republic of America excluded black people entirely from its system of voting and lawmaking until the 15th Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870. When black people were, by law, allowed to take part in democratic votes, they were still kept from doing so. The governments of many states, most of which were Southern, used poll taxes and literacy tests to keep black people from being able to vote. Those who passed these tests were threatened with violence from individuals if they decided to exercise their right to vote, which effectively disenfranchised the entire race (Fifteenth Amendment). The reconstruction era and the years after was a time of newfound freedom for former slaves, but they were held on plantations and their voices were silenced by white people in the same way as when they were

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