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Name:______Date:______

Emancipation

Review the image above.

  1. Explain what objects and/or people you see in the image above.
  1. How is the left side of the image different from the right side?

Reconstruction

The word reconstruction means to repair or rebuild something that has been damaged or destroyed. In the history of the United States, the term Reconstruction refers to the period after the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the government worked towards rebuilding the Southern (Confederate) states, where most of the fighting took place. This rebuilding involved things that were destroyed such as railroads, houses, cities and farms.

Read page 114-115.

  1. How did some members of Congress feel about the former Confederates (South)?
  1. Explain what the South had to do in order to be reunited and rejoin the Union?
  1. What do you think should happened to the 4 million former slaves-now called freedmen?
  1. In your own words or using the image below, what should freedom mean or look like for the freedmen (African Americans)?

Sharecropping

Most former slaves were poor. They wanted land to farm but had no money to buy it. Meanwhile, their former owners desperately needed workers to farm their land but had no money to pay them. Out of the needs of both groups came a farming system called sharecropping. A sharecropper is a farmer who gives part of his or her crop to a landlord as a payment for using the land. Planters who turned to sharecropping divided their land into small plots (pieces). They rented these plots to individual tenant farmers. A tenant farmer is one who pays rent for the land they work. A few tenants paid rent for their plots in cash. But most paid the rent by giving the landowner a share-usually a third or a half- of the crops they raised on their plots. This system is known as sharecropping.

Sharecropping looked good and promising to freedmen at first. They liked being independent farmers who worked for themselves. In time, they hoped to earn enough money to buy a farm of their own. However, most sharecroppers had to borrow money from planters to buy food, seeds, tools and supplies they needed to survive. They often made little money or earned enough from their crops to pay back what they owed. Rather than feeling independent, most sharecroppers lived a life of poverty and debt because they couldn’t afford to pay back the planters.

What do you think about sharecropping? (fair / not fair)? Would you have chosen to be a sharecropper? Explain! ______

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Life after the Civil War (Reconstruction)

The 13th Amendment

The 14th Amendment

The 15th Amendment


  • Review the 13th-15th Amendment and their main ideas.
  • Cut and paste the image next to the amendment that best represents what’s occurring in the picture.
  • In the 3rd box, explain what you think is occurring in the image.