Between 1865 and 1867, the federal government carried out a program to repair the damage to the South and restore the southern states in the Union. This program was known as reconstruction. Plantation owners lost slave labor worth 3 billion dollars. Poor white Southerners could not find work because of new competition from freedmen. The war had destroyed two thirds of the South’s shipping industry.
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Cimone
4/24/2010 03:38:00 am
Newly freed slave rebuilt their lives: Freedom of Movement: Enslaved people often walked away from plantations upon hearing that the Union Army was near. Freedom to Own Land: Proposals to give white-owned land to freed people got little support from the government. Unofficial land retribution did take place, however. Freedom to Worship: African Americans formed their own churches and started mutual aid societies, debating clubs, drama societies and trade associations. Freedom to Learn: Between 1865 and 1870, black educators founded 30 African American Colleges.
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Andrew Murphy
5/2/2010 10:44:26 am
1. The civil war ended slavery. Which gave the African Americans their freedom. They were part of society at the time too. 2. The plantation owners would rape their female slaves. It wasn't illegal because slaves were their property. It was still taboo because a white upper class having sex with a black slave. The war put an end to that. 3. Once the war was won the plantation owners had to do their own house work and field work. Everything the slaves used to do. 4. The African American families were not separated as frequently as they were while slavery still was the way of the land. 5. African Americans could walk the streets and not be hunted down like dogs. Of course, nothing changes over night.
