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The Reconstruction era was a period in American history, which lasted from late in the American Civil War (1861–1865) until the Compromise of 1877. Its main goals were to rebuild the nation after the war, reintegrate the former Confederate states, and address the social, political, and economic impacts of slavery.
The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than 160 million acres of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the United States, was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a U.S. government agency, from 1865 to 1872, after the American Civil War, to direct "provisions, clothing, and fuel...for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children".
The Desert Land Act is a United States federal law which was passed by the United States Congress on March 3, 1877, to encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and semiarid public lands within certain states of the Western states. Through the Act, United States citizens, or those declaring an intent to become a citizen, over the age of 21 may apply for a desert-land entry to irrigate and reclaim the land. This act amended the Homestead Act of 1862. Originally the act offered 640 acres (2.6 km2), although currently only 320 acres may be claimed.
The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. An estimated 62–153 Black militia men were murdered while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan. Three white men also died during the confrontation.
Forty acres and a mule was part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, during the American Civil War, to allot land to some freed families, in plots of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha). Sherman later ordered the army to lend mules for the agrarian reform effort. The field orders followed a series of conversations between Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Radical Republican abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens following disruptions to the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War. Many freed people believed, after being told by various political figures, that they had a right to own the land they had been forced to work as slaves and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land. However, Abraham Lincoln's successor as president, Andrew Johnson, tried to reverse the intent of Sherman's wartime Order No. 15 and similar provisions included in the second Freedmen's Bureau bills.
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The Black Codes, sometimes called the Black Laws, were laws which governed the conduct of African Americans. In 1832, James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free colored persons of African blood; and in no part of the country do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights." Although Black Codes existed before the Civil War and although many Northern states had them, the Southern U.S. states codified such laws in everyday practice. The best known of these laws were passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and in order to compel them to work for either low or no wages.
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The ten percent plan, formally the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, was a United States presidential proclamation issued on December 8, 1863, by United States President Abraham Lincoln, during the American Civil War. By this point in the war, the Union Army had pushed the Confederate Army out of several regions of the South, and some Confederate states were ready to have their governments rebuilt. Lincoln's plan established a process through which this postwar reconstruction could come about.
Special Field Orders, No. 15 were military orders issued during the American Civil War, on January 16, 1865, by General William Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi of the United States Army. They provided for the confiscation of 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of land along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and the dividing of it into parcels of not more than 40 acres (0.16 km2), on which were to be settled approximately 18,000 formerly enslaved families and other black people then living in the area.
The Freedmen's Bureau bills provided legislative authorization for the Freedmen's Bureau, which was set up by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 as part of the United States Army. Following the original bill in 1865, subsequent bills sought to extend its authority and lifespan. Andrew Johnson tried to derail the bill's intention to aid freed slaves, until the Bureau was disbanded on account of rampant corruption during the first term of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
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The Cherokee Freedmen controversy was a political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding the issue of tribal membership. The controversy had resulted in several legal proceedings between the two parties from the late 20th century to August 2017.
The presidency of Andrew Johnson began on April 15, 1865, when Andrew Johnson became President of the United States upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and ended on March 4, 1869. He had been Vice President of the United States for only six weeks when he succeeded to the presidency. The 17th United States president, Johnson was a member of the Democratic Party before the Civil War and had been Lincoln's 1864 running mate on the National Union ticket, which was supported by Republicans and War Democrats. Johnson took office as the Civil War came to a close, and his presidency was dominated by the aftermath of the war. As president, Johnson attempted to build his own party of Southerners and conservative Northerners, but he was unable to unite his supporters into a new party. Republican Ulysses S. Grant succeeded Johnson as president.
Following the defeat of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, Texas was mandated to rejoin the United States of America. Union Army soldiers officially occupied the state starting on June 19, 1865. For the next nine years, Texas was governed by a series of provisional governors as the state went through Reconstruction. As stated by the Texas State Library and Archive Commission, in 1869, the United States Congress passed an act allowing the citizens of Texas to vote on a new State Constitution. Later that same year, President Grant approved their Constitution. Texas fully rejoined the Union on March 30, 1870, when President Grant signed the act to readmit Texas to Congressional Representation. Texas later repealed the State Constitution of 1869 and enacted the Texas State Constitution of 1876 on February 15, 1876, which remains their current state constitution though with numerous amendments.
The term Jim Crow economy applies to a specific set of economic conditions in the United States during the period when the Jim Crow laws were in effect to force racial segregation; however, it should also be taken as an attempt to disentangle the economic ramifications from the politico-legal ramifications of "separate but equal" de jure segregation, to consider how the economic impacts might have persisted beyond the politico-legal ramifications.
Black land loss in the United States refers to the loss of land ownership and rights by Black people residing or farming in the United States. In 1862, the United States government passed the Homestead Act. This Act gave certain Americans seeking farmland the right to apply for ownership of government land or the public domain. This newly acquired farmland was typically called a homestead. In all, more than 160 million acres of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the United States was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders. However, until the United States abolished slavery in 1865 and the passage of the 14th amendment in 1868, enslaved and free Blacks could not benefit from these acts. According to data published by the National Park Service and the University of Nebraska, some 6000 homesteads of an average of 160 acres were issued to Blacks in the years immediately following the war.
References
- ↑ Paul Wallace Gates, "Federal Land Policy in the South 1866-1888." Journal of Southern History (1940) 6#3 pp: 303-330. in JSTOR
- ↑ Oubre, Forty Acres and a Mule (1978), pp. 86–87.
- ↑ Oubre, Forty Acres and a Mule (1978), p. 81, 93.
- ↑ Paul W. Gates, "Federal Land Policy in the South, 1866-1888," Journal of Southern History, 6 (August 1940), 310-315.
- ↑ Oubre, Forty Acres and a Mule (1978), p. 188.
