ipl-logo

Civil War Reconstruction Essay

578 Words3 Pages

The Civil War was the most ruthless and devastating war in American history. After being pushed too far by the Northerner’s anti-slavery antics, the South decided to attempt to peacefully succeed from the Union. However, the North almost automatic disagreed with this attempt, and what was supposed to be a peacefully situation turned out to be the war with the most casualties that has ever been known to happen, the exact number being over 600,000 lives lost. But despite this catastrophic event, the true horror began to reveal itself after the war, with the name of Reconstruction. A few years after the war, life seemed to be headed in the right direction for the former slaves. For instance, because of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment, they were freed, given citizenship, and the newly freed men were given the right to vote. Despite the seemingly new start for the future of …show more content…

When the African Americans were finally freed from the hold of slavery, many of them were not able to participate in normal jobs due to the lack of experience, knowledge and skill. Since the former slaves were originally not able to get on their own feet due to having no money, their former masters offered them a deal; if they work for them, they will pay for housing, tools, and etc. While the deal did not seem bad, in actuality the former owners were taking advantage of them, they offered them a job at their planation, to where the African Americans worked a similar job to when they were slaves. However, the made sure that they were constantly in debt, not able to pay off what they owed the employers for housing, tools, and other items the received. For instance, document one shows a chart of the process that was just described; former save receives land and other items, sharecropper is given crops to sell after he has harvested, landowner makes sure that the sharecropper is always in debt, and then the process repeats itself. Whether the former slaves see it or not,

Open Document