Carpetbaggers & Scalawags - American Civil War In general, the term “carpetbagger” refers to a traveler who arrives in a new region with only a satchel (or carpetbag) of possessions, and who attempts to profit from or gain control over his new surroundings, often against the will or consent of the original inhabitants. After 1865, a number of northerners moved to the South to purchase land, lease plantations or partner with down-and-out planters in the hopes of making money from cotton. At first they were welcomed, as southerners saw the need for northern capital and investment to get the devastated region back on its feet. They later became an object of much scorn, as many southerners saw them as low-class and opportunistic newcomers seeking to get rich on their misfortune.
Ku Klux Klan - Facts & Summary In 1915, white Protestant nativists organized a revival of the Ku Klux Klan near Atlanta, Georgia, inspired by their romantic view of the Old South as well as Thomas Dixon’s 1905 book “The Clansman” and D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation.” This second generation of the Klan was not only anti-black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor. The Great Depression in the 1930s depleted the Klan’s membership ranks, and the organization temporarily disbanded in 1944. Sharecropping Sharecropping was an agricultural labor system that developed in Georgia and throughout the South following Reconstruction and lasted until the mid-twentieth century. Under this arrangement, laborers with no land of their own worked on farm plots owned by others, and at the end of the season landowners paid workers a share of the crop. Origins Sharecropping evolved following the failure of both the contract labor system and land reform after the Civil War (1861-65). The contract labor system, administered by the Freedmen's Bureau, was designed to negotiate labor deals between white landowners and former slaves, many of whom resented the system and refused to participate. Sharecropping developed, then, as a system that theoretically benefited both parties. Though the system developed from immediate postwar contingencies, it defined the agricultural system in rural Georgia for close to 100 years. The Labor System Land was not, however, the only thing sharecroppers needed from the owners.
14th Amendment | Constitution | US Law Amendment XIV Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. Section 3. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. Section 5.
Sharecropping and tenant farming Sharecropping was common throughout the South well into the twentieth century, and required the work of entire families. In this famous photograph, a six year-old girl picks cotton in Oklahoma. (Photograph by Lewis W. Hine. After the Civil War, thousands of former slaves and white farmers forced off their land by the bad economy lacked the money to purchase the farmland, seeds, livestock, and equipment they needed to begin farming. Tenant farmers usually paid the landowner rent for farmland and a house. Sharecroppers seldom owned anything. Over the years, low crop yields and unstable crop prices forced more farmers into tenancy. Next: Life on the land: Voices
Sharecropper share·crop·per noun\-ˌkrä-pər\ : a farmer especially in the southern U.S. who raises crops for the owner of a piece of land and is paid a portion of the money from the sale of the crops : a tenant farmer especially in the southern United States who is provided with credit for seed, tools, living quarters, and food, who works the land, and who receives an agreed share of the value of the crop minus charges First Known Use of SHARECROPPER Other Agriculture/Gardening Terms Rhymes with SHARECROPPER bebopper, cartopper, clodhopper, eavesdropper, eyedropper, eyepopper, grasshopper, hedgehopper, hip-hopper, improper, job-hopper, joypopper, leafhopper, name-dropper, rockhopper, showstopper, skin-popper, treehopper, woodchopper bebopper, cartopper, clodhopper, eavesdropper, eyedropper, eyepopper, grasshopper, hedgehopper, hip-hopper, improper, job-hopper, joypoppe... Learn More About SHARECROPPER Seen & Heard What made you want to look up sharecropper?
Reconstruction - American Civil War At the outset of the Civil War, to the dismay of the more radical abolitionists in the North, President Abraham Lincoln did not make abolition of slavery a goal of the Union war effort. To do so, he feared, would drive the border slave states still loyal to the Union into the Confederacy and anger more conservative northerners. By the summer of 1862, however, the slaves themselves had pushed the issue, heading by the thousands to the Union lines as Lincoln’s troops marched through the South. Their actions debunked one of the strongest myths underlying Southern devotion to the “peculiar institution”–that many slaves were truly content in bondage–and convinced Lincoln that emancipation had become a political and military necessity. In response to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed more than 3 million slaves in the Confederate states by January 1, 1863, blacks enlisted in the Union Army in large numbers, reaching some 180,000 by war’s end.
Sharecropping | Slavery By Another Name Bento After the Civil War, former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping. Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. High interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted, requiring the debt to be carried over until the next year or the next. Approximately two-thirds of all sharecroppers were white, and one third were black. American Experience | Reconstruction: The Second Civil War | Black Legislators The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." President Andrew Johnson's veto of the bill was overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, and the bill became law. Johnson's attitude contributed the growth of the Radical Republican movement, which favored increased intervention in the South and more aid to former slaves, and ultimately to Johnson's impeachment. 1866 Civil Rights Act 14 Stat. 27-30, April 9, 1866 A.D. CHAP. XXXI.An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication.