HIST 103A Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Scalawag, Sharecropping, Samuel J. Tilden
5 May 2018
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Lecture 16.2: Reconstruction
Reconstruction in the South
➢Remaking Southern Life
○Amendments and Union Army protection led to a wave of new voters (black and
white)
■735,000 black men registered to vote
■635,000 new white votes
●Almost all were a part of the new Republican coalition
○1867 – New state constitutions, new multiracial governments
■Color-blind civil and political rights
■New tax structure
●Southern states have had relatively low taxes
○Taxes they did have were on slaves
■Required rewriting the Constitution all across the
South, as there were no more slaves
●Reconstruction governments began to tax land instead
■Raised taxes enabled new institutions to aid the impoverished
●Ex: Schools, asylums, infrastructure (especially railroads to make
Southern agricultural productivity jump by giving more routes to
accessed markets, which made the North prosperous), asylums,
hospitals, prisons etc.
○By the 1870s, the entirety of the Confederacy was under Republican control
■African Americans were the most affected by the remaking of the South
●Radical reconstruction brought about a new wave of black elected
and appointed officials for the first time
○This is true in the federal government as well
■First time African Americans served as governors,
served in Congress and served in the Senate
○The 200,000+ black men who served all levels of government in the South
provided protection to their constituents
■Ensuring that black communities had resources for schools and roads
■Advocated against the abuses of power from police harassment, to juries
that didn’t change whites who were accused of murder
●This wave of African American participation wasn’t always
something that happened on the state or federal level
○Sometimes more important at local level, for controlling
and containing abusive powers of the state, to push back
violent terrorism on the part of white supremacism
➢Neo-Confederate Reaction
○Wanted to reestablish white supremacism in the South
■Turned to violence, public outcry, language, etc
○“Carpetbaggers”
■Northerns who arrived in the South to take advantage of the Southern
business opportunities
●Ex: As teachers, administrators, etc
○“Scalawags”
■White Southern supporters of Reconstruction governments
●Usually poor white, or non slaveholding white person
○Both groups alleged to be “stealing” the South from its proper masters (white
neo-Confederates)
○The Republican coalition in the South also included some ex-Confederates and
planters
■Wanted to use the power of the new government to improve the economy
➢Sharecropping
○The destruction of slavery raised major questions about labor and agricultural
productivity
■The war destroyed the South’s agricultural economy
■One of the main goals of the Republicans running Reconstruction was to
rebuild that economy without re-empowering landowners to engineer or
control agricultural commerce as they had over slavery
●In both US context and what other post-slavery societies had done
to avoid creating a new class of labor that is equally oppressed
■After the death of slavery, many people (especially women and children)
removed their labor from the agricultural economy
●Participating in the Victorian idea of what family should look like
○Women should not be working in the fields, but should be
taking care of their children and home
○Sharecropping rose out of the shortage of labor and worsening economy
■Landowner provides lands, seeds and tools (capital)
■Farmer and family provide labor
●In return, they get a share of the crop
○Spread pretty quickly to tobacco and cotton growing areas
■Black and white farmers both participated
○Cycles of credit in sharecropping creating debt
■Debts discipline the laborers
●Keep them tied to the land
■A lot of room of exploitation
Document Summary
Amendments and union army protection led to a wave of new voters (black and white) Almost all were a part of the new republican coalition. 1867 new state constitutions, new multiracial governments. Southern states have had relatively low taxes. Taxes they did have were on slaves. Required rewriting the constitution all across the. Reconstruction governments began to tax land instead. Raised taxes enabled new institutions to aid the impoverished. Ex: schools, asylums, infrastructure (especially railroads to make. Southern agricultural productivity jump by giving more routes to accessed markets, which made the north prosperous), asylums, hospitals, prisons etc. By the 1870s, the entirety of the confederacy was under republican control. African americans were the most affected by the remaking of the south. Radical reconstruction brought about a new wave of black elected and appointed officials for the first time. This is true in the federal government as well.
