freedmen

Examples of freedmen in the following topics:

• The Freedmen's Bureau

  • The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency from 1865-1869 aided distressed freedmen (freed slaves) during the Reconstruction era of the United States .
  • Freedmen had a strong desire to learn to read and write.
  • After 1866, Congress appropriated some funds to use in the freedmen's schools.
  • Office of the Freedmen's Bureau, Memphis, Tennessee. (1866) From Harper's Weekly
  • The Freedmen's Bureau aided distressed freedmen (freed slaves) in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States.

• Johnson's Plan

  • Additionally, freedmen were not granted voting rights or citizenship The Black Codes outraged Northerners, and were overthrown by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave freedmen full legal equality (except the right to vote).
  • This helped freedmen force planters to bargain for their labor.
  • However, because freedmen lacked capital, and because planters continued to own the tools, draft animals, and land, the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops, mainly cotton, for the landowners and merchants.
  • Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions involving freedmen in the South.
  • Johnson vetoed the renewal of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill in February 1866.

• The Radical Record

  • Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage and legal equality for freedmen.
  • By 1866, the Radical Republicans supported federal civil rights for freedmen, which President Johnson opposed.
  • In January 1866, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau, which Johnson vetoed in February.
  • Although Johnson sympathized with the plights of the freedmen, he was against federal assistance.
  • Congress also passed another version of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which Johnson again vetoed.

• Reconstruction in the South

  • Meanwhile, the Radical Republicans used Congress to block the moderate approach, impose harsh terms, and upgrade the rights of the freedmen (former slaves).
  • Indeed, he refused to heed Northern concerns when Southern state legislatures implemented Black Codes that lowered the status of the freedmen similar to slavery.
  • Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage for male freedmen.
  • New Republican lawmakers were elected by a coalition of white Unionists, freedmen, and Northerners who had settled in the South.
  • The amendments were directed at ending slavery and providing full citizenship to freedmen.

• The Freed Slaves

  • South for freedmen, the African Americans who had formerly been slaves.
  • The most widely recognized of the Freedmen's Bureau's achievements is its accomplishments in the field of education.
  • Freedmen had a strong desire to learn to read and write.
  • They had worked hard to establish schools in their communities prior to the advent of the Freedmen's Bureau.
  • Teachers who came from the North to teach freedmen were sometimes attacked or intimidated as well.

• Lincoln's Plan and Congress's Response

  • They sought to impose harsh terms on the South, thinking Lincoln's approach too lenient, as well as to upgrade the rights of freedmen (former slaves).
  • In March 1865, Congress created a new agency, the Freedmen's Bureau.
  • It also attempted to oversee new relations between freedmen and their former masters in a free-labor market.
  • The Freedmen's Bureau was the largest federal aid relief plan at the time, and it was the first large scale governmental welfare program.
  • The Freedmen's Bureau helped to start a change of power in the South that drew national attention from the Republicans in the North to the conservative Democrats in the South.

• Slavery during the Revolution

  • African American slaves and freedmen fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War; many were promised their freedom in exchange for service.
  • When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves, now freedmen.
  • Altogether, the British were estimated to evacuate nearly 20,000 freedmen (including families) with other Loyalists and their troops at the end of the war.
  • More than 3,000 freedmen were resettled in Nova Scotia; others were transported to the West Indies of the Caribbean islands; others traveled to Great Britain.

• Devastation in the South

  • Having used most of their capital to purchase slaves, white planters had minimal cash to pay freedmen workers to bring in crops.
  • As a result, a system of sharecropping was developed in which landowners broke up large plantations and rented small lots to the freedmen and their families.
  • The end of the Civil War also was accompanied by a large migration of new freedmen from the countryside to the cities.
  • The large population of slave artisans during the antebellum period had not translated into a large number of freedmen artisans during the Reconstruction.

• Partisan Politics

  • In the South, the Republicans won strong support from the freedmen (newly enfranchised African Americans), but the party was usually controlled by local whites ("scalawags") and opportunistic Yankees ("carpetbaggers").
  • It was dominated by the new Republican Party (also known as the Grand Old Party or GOP), which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen, while adopting many Whiggish modernization programs such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads and aid to land grant colleges.
  • Grant and his war veterans, bolstered by the solid vote of freedmen.
  • By the mid-1870s, it was clear that Confederate nationalism was dead; all but the most ardent Republican "Stalwarts" agreed that the southern Republican coalition of African-American freedmen, scalawags, and carpetbaggers was helpless and hopeless.

• The Triumph of Congressional Reconstruction

  • Radical Republicans in Congress, however, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way for male freedmen suffrage.
  • In the immediate postwar era before the vote was granted to the freedmen, Southern political leaders renounced secession and slavery, but not white supremacy.
  • In the elections of 1867, however, a new crop of Republican lawmakers were elected by a coalition of white Unionists, freedmen and northerners who had settled in the South.
  • Under a system of martial law in the South, the military closely supervised local government, elections, and the administration of justice, and tried to protect office holders and freedmen from violence.