Chapter 15 notes.docx - I[Introduction Sherman Land II The...

I. [Introduction: Sherman Land]
II. The Meaning of Freedom
A. Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom
1. African-Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by their
experience as slaves and observation of the free society around them.
2. Blacks relished the opportunity to demonstrate their liberation
from the regulations (significant and trivial) associated with slavery.
B. Families in Freedom
1. The family was central to the postemancipation black community.
2. Freedom subtly altered relationships within the family.
1. Emancipation increased the power of black men within
the family.
2. Black women withdrew from work as field laborers and
house servants to the domestic sphere.
B. Church and School
a. Blacks abandoned white-controlled religious institutions to create
churches of their own.
b. Blacks of all ages flocked to the schools established by northern
missionary societies, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and groups of ex-slaves.
C. Political Freedom
a. The right to vote inevitably became central to the former slaves’ desire
for empowerment and equality.
b. To demonstrate their patriotism, blacks throughout the South organized
Fourth of July celebrations.
D. Land, Labor, and Freedom
a. Former slaves’ ideas of freedom were directly related to land
ownership.
1. Many former slaves insisted that through their unpaid
labor, they had acquired a right to the land.
B. Masters without Slaves
a. The South’s defeat was complete and demoralizing.
1. Planter families faced profound changes.
b. Most planters defined black freedom in the narrowest manner.
B. The Free Labor Vision
a. The victorious Republican North tried to implement its own vision of
freedom.
1. Free labor
b. The Freedmen’s Bureau was to establish a working free labor system.
B. The Freedmen’s Bureau
a. The task of the Bureau—establishing schools, providing aid to the
poor and aged, settling disputes, etc.—was daunting, especially since it
had fewer than 1,000 agents.
b. The Bureau’s achievements in some areas, notably education and
health care, were striking.
C. The Failure of Land Reform

a. President Andrew Johnson ordered nearly all land in federal hands
returned to its former owners.
b. Because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural
freedpeople remained poor and without property during
Reconstruction.
c. Sharecropping came to dominate the cotton South and much of the
tobacco belt.
d. Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks’ desire
for land and planters’ desire for labor discipline.
D. The White Farmer
a. The aftermath of the war hurt small white farmers.