-
Civil War
Bloody civil war that lasted four years ends. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The 13th Amendment pushed for the complete abolition of slavery in America. After the passing of the 13th Amendment, southern states enforced Black Codes that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and set their wages. -
Period: to
Black Code
Laws that restricted African Americans' freedom and forced them to work for low wages. Black Codes existed before the Civil War and many Northern states too but it was the Southern U.S. states that codified such laws in everyday practice. -
Period: to
Reconstruction Period
Period in which it was attempted to correct inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy. It was also attempted to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of the war. -
Period: to
Economic activity was destroyed
After the war, the villages, cities and towns in the South were destroyed. The Confederate bonds and currencies became worthless. All the banks in the South collapsed, and there was an economic depression, having as result inequalities between the North and South. The South had to reconstruct its labour system, There was poverty with decreased production of cotton and tobacco until 1879. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is assessinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington. The 16th president of the US was gunshot in the head. -
Freedmen’s Bureau
The Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bill. This meant assistance for the refugees and freeded slaves, and aceptance of all person borned in the US as national citizens who were to enjoy equality before the law. -
Congress passed the Reconstruction Act
The south was divided into five military state districts and it was outlined the way in which governments were to be organized (based on universal male suffrage). -
Southern whites turn to violence
Despite efforts made by the government to help black Americans move forward, violence was on the rise. Southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of radical reconstruction. From this scenario emerged one of the ruthless organisations: the Ku Klux Klan, which was formed by Confederate veterans. They threatened black communities and politicians. The first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s during Reconstruction. -
Fourteenth Amendment
It granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War, including “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” -
Sharecropping Main System in Agriculture
Black families rented small plots of land, or shares, to work themselves; in return, they gave a portion of their crop to the landowner at the end of the year. This system gave African Americans autonomy. -
Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment
It guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Women would not receive that right until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
