SOUTHERN ECONOMY

-economy was totally destroyed

-currency worthless

-no transportation system

-no gov’t authority

-loss of slave labor

-growth of gov’t to provide public services

LANDOWNERS

-plantation owners hardest hit

Slaves gone

Crops destroyed

Fortunes lost

Homes looted

-some radicals thought land should be divided to slaves as payment for slavery

-but land was never given to slaves

AFTER SLAVERY

-many slaves left the plantations

* 10 of the largest S cities doubled in size from 1865-1870

-looked for missing –family *600 mile walk

-others simply moved to new areas

*to start families

-most did not have the money to buy any land

- 80% of blacks were illiterate, during reconstruction people of all ages sought out to learn!

PLANTATIONS RESTORED

-many of the poor could not leave

-tenant farming person pays a rent to the landowner (does not share crops)- rents tools & land: Landowners charge high price

-sharecroppers person gives a portion of the harvest to pay for the land, (Shares crops, lucky to break even, kept the workers dependent on the landowners )

PLANTATIONS RESTORED

-the absent idea of “40 acres and a mule”- Sherman promised 40 acres and a mule to emancipated AA during the war in GA, SC.

- Johnson order land owners could reclaim their land

-cotton is no longer king

FREEDMAN’S BUREAU

-created to help former slaves adjust & poor whites , pushed through Congress by Radical Republicans

-provided education and schooling

-clothing & food

-helped former slaves find work

-Set up 40 hospitals, 4,000 schools, 71 Teacher Training centers

-was never able to really help most former slaves

-land reform was most basic need of former slaves- pg- 379