The American Civil War1861-1865

A house divided against itself cannot stand … I

believe this government cannot endure,

permanently half slave and half free.

North vs. South

The North

Abraham Lincoln

Union Army

General Ulysses S. Grant

Yankees

• New ideas • Industrialization • Abolitionists • Urbanization

The South

Jefferson Davis

Confederates

General Robert E. Lee

Dixies

• Old traditions, customs • Plantations • Pro-slavery • Rural

Outbreak of the War• November 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the USA.

• December 1860, 11 states decided to leave the USA

• A new country was formed called the Confederate States of America (CSA), or the Confederacy.

• Jefferson Davis was chosen as the President for the Confederacy.

Outbreak of the War

• On January 1st 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which granted slaves their freedom. This brought to an end 250 years of slavery.

• 1863, the Union began to officially recruit black soldiers

Outbreak of the War

• Mixed units were unthinkable and blacks were made to serve in separate regiments

• The 1st all black regiment were the 54th Massachusetts Regiment

The 13th Amendment (1865)

The Freedmen’s Bureau• March 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was

established to help the newly freed slaves adjust to their freedom.

Reconstruction

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Confederate Prison Camp

The Reconstruction Period

• Reconstruction is the name given to the period of American history after the civil war.

• It is also known as the “Tragic Era,” as blacks did not fully benefit from their freedom

The Reconstruction Period

• 14th Amendment was in 1866, which granted blacks equal civil rights

• 15th Amendment was in 1870, which granted blacks the right to vote

Voting Rights

3 ways that black Americans were stopped from voting:

A. Poll tax: A tax on every person that many poor blacks could not afford to pay.

B. Literacy Tests: People had to explain the meaning of a legal document in order to qualify to vote. Many blacks could not read and those who could almost always failed it because the tests that were given to them were more difficult

C. Grandfather Clause: If your grandfather was a slave, you lost the right to vote

Reconstruction

• State land in the South was opened up to black settlers

• The Freedmen’s Bureau (1865) operated hospitals and schools for blacks.

Sharecropping

• Many blacks did not want to work for wages because it kept them under the direction of whites and reminded them of slavery

• A new agricultural system known as sharecropping emerged

Sharecropping

• Plantation-owners broke up their estates into small parcels of land for sharecropping

• In return for seed and equipment, the sharecropper would give the landowner a 1/3 or ½ of his crop

• They could never raise enough cash to buy their own land and equipment, which trapped them into debt and poverty

Black Codes

• Southern rules

• Blacks could not own guns

• They could only own property in the ‘black’ part of town (less desirable areas).

• Not allowed to testify in court

• They could be arrested for being rude to whites or for not having a job.

Black Convicts

Jim Crow Laws

• The term Jim Crow was then used for a set of laws that were passed by the Southern States

• Jim Crow was a character in a 1828 song that was made popular by a white comedian, Thomas (Daddy) Rice

• This song made fun of black people• The term Jim Crow was then used for a set of laws that

were passed by the Southern States

Jim Crow

• These laws discriminated against blacks and established segregation

• Segregation meant that black people were kept separate from whites

• Blacks were not allowed to use the same public facilities as whites and were treated as 2nd class citizens

                                                                                

Jim Crow Laws

• Homer Plessey, a black man, challenged a Louisiana railroad company because they made him sit in a ‘coloured only’ carriage

• The Supreme Court supported the railroad company and in 1896 declared the laws legal

• This allowed the Southern States to make up more laws

Jim Crow Laws

• Marriage between blacks and whites was illegal in some states

• They were not allowed to use the same hotels, theatres and restaurants as whites

• There were black only carriages on trains and they had to sit in the back of buses

Jim Crow Laws

• There was segregation in the armed forces

• There were separate residential areas and schools

• The American Red Cross kept black people’s blood segregated in blood banks until the 1940s.

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1940’s Louisiana

• Highly Rural except New Orleans (trade)

• Under Jim Crow Laws until the 1960’s