Reconstruction Dbq

About 650,000 soldiers died during the Civil War; either by combat, accidents, diseases or starvation. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars America has faced. The Union beat the Confederates over slavery. The United States no longer has slavery and reconstruction follows the war. Reconstruction was different for everyone in the North and the South. “Reconstruction was widely viewed as a era of corruption and misgovernment…” There were many problems that faced the South, like, keeping former slaves from being used by white landowners and finding ways to provide to former slaves. However, Reconstruction was successful for African Americans, Southerners, and Northerners.
The Reconstruction was successful for African Americans. On September

“More than a quarter of a million had dies in the war, so that from a fourth to a third of the able bodied white men were gone… and over 35,000 were lost in the war.” All classes of Southerners were affected. In March 1877, Congress made the Reconstruction Act, which “divided the South into five military districts and called for the creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote.” Farmers and plantation owners also struggled after slavery. Until sharecropping was invented. Sharecropping allowed “a black family to rent a part of a plantation, with the crop divided between worker and owner at the end of the year.” This helped white farmers which were growing 40 percent of cotton in the United States. Some Southerners turned to violence. Smaller groups of white people attacked, and even killed, blacks if they stepped out of line, or did something that the white people didn’t like. Eventually, the Ku Klux Klan, aka the KKK, formed. The KKK was a group of white planters, merchants, and Democratic politicians. In Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, armed whites assaulted this town with a small cannon. Hundreds of formers slaves were murdered, along with fifty members of a black militia, even after they surrendered. This was their bloodiest attack. Also, in May, 1866, white mobs burned 12 churches and 4 schools. At least 46 blacks died, while 70 were wounded, 5 women were raped, and two white men were

Northerners thought that the black codes were just another form of slavery. So, Abraham Lincoln founded the Freedmen's Bureau. This lasted from 1865 to 1870. Agents would establish schools, aid the poor, and settle disputes. They built 3,000 schools and they helped 150,000 people. Northerners also had another problem with the south. “Northerners increasingly felt that the South should be able to solve its own problems without constant interference from Washington.” They believed that blacks no longer need assistance, because they gave them all of these resources. Even though the North disagreed with the South, the North grew very successful during and after