Name: Nirnay Reddt

Directions: Use the documents below to answer the questions. Type your answers in complete
sentences if needed.

Reconstruction Era DBQ

Document 1: Freedmen’s Bureau

Source: By Jas. E. Taylor. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The illustration above is a school established by the Freedmen’s Bureau to educate
free African Americans after the Civil War. The goal was to help black and white
poor southerners with medical care, jobs, legal assistance, housing, and education.
The agency faced resistance from many white southerners who did not want African
Americans to become self-sufficient. The agency would end in 1872, and it was not
able to provide African Americans with long-term protection and assistance.

1) What organization provided education to former slaves?

- Freedmen's Bureau
2) Name three things the Freedmen’s Bureau provided for freed slaves and poor whites.
-Jobs,housing and education
3) Why do you think white southerners opposed the Freedmen’s Bureau?
They did not want african americans to succed.
Document 2: Reconstruction Amendments

AMENDMENT 13
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

AMENDMENT 14
“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.”

AMENDMENT 15
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude”

1) What did the 13th Amendment make illegal in the United States?
Slavery

2) What does the 14th Amendment say about people born in the United States?
They all have to be citizens

3) What right does the 15th Amendment protect?

Eveybodys right to vote

4) According to the 14th Amendment, everyone has “equal protection of the law.” Why is
this an important clause within the amendment? So people don't put in jail for something
they did not do.
Document 3: Worse Than Slavery Cartoon

Thomas Nast [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1) According to the illustration, what organizations are responsible for terrorizing African
Americans? The K.K.K and the White League

2) According to the illustration, what are two things African Americans experienced after
the Civil War? Lynching and violence

3) According to the illustration, what kind of weapons did the Ku Klux Klan use against
African Americans? Guns and Knifes.

4) Why do you think the author chose to hide the faces of the white supremacists?
Because thats what theey do in real life.
Document 4: The First Vote

The 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to African American men. However,
many Southern States began passing laws to deny African American men the right to
vote. Southern governments passed laws such as the poll tax and literacy test. The
grandfather clause exempted white southerners from these laws.
1) What Amendment gave African American men the right to vote?

2) Why did the Southern States pass laws like the poll tax and the literacy test?
So they could limit the african american voting.

3) What law did the Southern States pass that exempted white southerners from the poll
tax and literacy test?
The grandfather clause.

4) How do you think African Americans felt about voting for the first time?
Good

Document 5: Sharecropping

Jack Delano [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Sharecroppers are farmers who are required to give part of their crop to the
landowner. The majority of sharecroppers were former slaves in the South.
Landowners forced them to grow cash crops instead of food. Landowners also loaned
sharecroppers’ seed, tools, and housing for a share of their crop. Sharecropping led
to a “cycle of debt” that kept farmers in poverty. Many sharecroppers owed the
landowner money at the end of the year, and they had to continue sharecropping to
try to get out of debt. The sharecropping system was not much better than slavery
because African Americans were working for little to no wages.

1) What is the name of the system where landowners rented land if they were paid back
with crops?
Sharecropping

2) How did the sharecropping system lead to a “cycle of debt?”

Becuase the rent was too much

3) How is sharecropping similar to slavery? -Because they don't make money and are
basically doing free labor.
Document 6: Carpetbaggers

Thomas Nast [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction.

Many Southerners accused carpetbaggers of moving south to make money or gain
political power. The term carpetbagger came from the suitcase they carried made of
carpet. Although some of the carpetbaggers took advantage of the South’s hardships,
many genuinely wanted to help African Americans.

1) What is the name of the Northerner who moved South after the Civil War?

Carpetbaggers

2) Name two reasons why carpetbaggers moved south following the Civil War.

Profit and political power.

3) Why do you think the cartoonist has the man shaking his fist with a mean look?

Because he is money hungry

4) Do you think the cartoonist opposes or supports carpetbaggers moving to the South?
Explain your answer.

Opposes because they guy their has so much money on his back and is drawn meanly.
Document 7: Election of 1876

The 1876 presidential election was disputed because electoral votes in South Carolina,
Louisiana, and Florida were so close that both the Republican and Democrat
candidates claimed victory. The Compromise of 1877 settled the disputed election.
The compromise allowed the Republican Party candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, to
become president. In return, the Democrats wanted federal troops removed from the
South. The compromise officially ended the Reconstruction Era.

1) According to the map, what candidates were running in the election of 1876?
William Hayes and Tilden

2) According to the map, what were the only three states in the South to have Republican
governments in 1876?
South Carolina,Florida and Louisana

3) What was an effect of the presidential election of 1876?

Ended reconstruction of the south.

4) Who ended up winning the election after the Compromise of 1876?

William Hayes

5) What era did the Compromise of 1876 officially end?

Reconstruction

Document 8: Segregation

Russell Lee [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Democrats regained control of Southern governments at the end of

Reconstruction, and they began passing laws to reverse civil rights gained by
African Americans. Southern states passed laws called Jim Crow laws to
separate whites from blacks in public places such as hotels, restrooms, water
fountains, parks, and hospitals. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
would finally end legal segregation.

1) What is the name of the laws that segregated whites and blacks?
Jim Crow Laws

2) What was the purpose of Jim Crow laws?

To take out the rights given to black people
3) Give two examples of Jim Crow laws.
Sepeartion of water fountains and in diners they could not sit together

4) What was passed in 1964 that made Jim Crow laws illegal?
Civil Rights Act of 1964

Extended Response
Based on the documents and your background knowledge, do you think
Reconstruction was a success or failure? Use complete sentences and
evidence from the documents to support your answer.

I think it was a failure in someways but good in other ways. It set up

education for african americans and tried a lot to get them equal
rights. They gave african americans a lot of rights but not all of them
but the Jim Crow laws opposed them and those rights went to waste.
They also failed in protecting blacks from KKK and other groups like
that. For the next 60 years it was hard for african americans to get
there rights but after a lot of protesting they got it. Reconsturctioun
set up african americans getting rights but most of them did not come
till a lot later.