Chapter 15

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land.

The Freedmen's Bureau

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau,[1] was a U.S. federal government agency established in 1865 to aid freedmen (freed slaves) in the South during the Reconstruction era of the United States, which attempted to change society in the former Confederacy.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

The Civil Rights Act (1866) was passed by Congress on 9th April 1866 over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The act declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era to guarantee African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and to prohibit exclusion from jury service.

Thirteenth Amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865.

Crop-Lien System

The crop-lien system was a credit system that became widely used by cotton farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1930s. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers who did not own the land they worked obtained supplies and food on credit from local merchants.

Ku Klux Klan

Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks.

Redeemers

In United States history, the Redeemers were a white political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War.

Black Codes

In the United States, the Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.

Ku Klux Klan Act

Ku Klux Klan Act made state officials liable in federal court for depriving anyone of their civil rights or the equal protection of the laws.

Colfax Massacre

The Colfax massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the seat of Grant Parish, during confrontation between opposing political forces of the Republicans and Democrats.

Compromise of 1877

The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the national government pulling the last federal troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.

Slaughter-House Cases

The Slaughter-House Cases was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the recently enacted Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It was a pivotal case in early civil rights law and decided that the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting the "privileges or immunities" conferred by virtue of US citizenship, to all individuals of all states within it but not to protect the various privileges or immunities incident to citizenship of a state.

Reconstruction Act

The Military Reconstruction Act, 1867. Congress placed the former Confederate states under military authority and divided the states into five districts with a Union general in charge of each district. The United States Army became the government in these districts until such time as new governments were constituted.

Enforcement Act of 1870

The Enforcement Act of 1870 was an act that restricted the first wave of the groups that made up the Klan.[5] In this act, the government banned the use of terror, force or bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race.[6] Other laws banned the KKK entirely. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried as common criminals and terrorists. The first Klan was all but eradicated within a year of federal prosecution.

Enforcement Act of 1871

The Enforcement Act of 1871 permitted federal oversight of local and state elections if any two citizens in a town with more than twenty thousand inhabitants desired it.

Enforcement Acts

The Enforcement Acts were three bills passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes which protected African-Americans' right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. -) Enforcement Act of 1870 -) Enforcement Act of 1871 -) Ku Klux Klan Act

Fifteenth Amendment

The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War.

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

The term carpetbagger refers to Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. Many carpetbaggers were said to have moved South for their own financial and political gains. Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated politically with black freedmen and Northern newcomers.