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What the South Was Like During Reconstruction
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Jun 10, 2025
On April 15, 1865, Lincoln was gunned down in Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth, a man sympathetic to the defeated Confederacy. In the years following the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson proved utterly incapable of unifying a fractured nation. Under Johnson, everyday life during the Reconstruction was a gauntlet of simmering hatred, short supplies, and an onslaught of new means for oppressing African Americans.
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On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was gunned down by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth
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Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, abandoned his predecessor's plans for Reconstruction and ultimately proved incapable of unifying the deeply fractured nation
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Southern states quickly saw an onslaught of new legal mechanisms designed to retain economic power
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of Southern landowners and oppress Black Americans. The effects of the Reconstruction
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period would shape the southern United States to this very day. Today, we're going to take a look
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at what life was actually like in the South during the Reconstruction. Whether oblivious, bigoted
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or living behind a thick wall of denial, many members of the southern elite believed their
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slaves were A-OK with living in bondage. While the abolitionist movement took root in the late
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1700s and the prohibition of slavery had been codified in all northern states by around the
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turn of the century, some land-owning southern elites scoffed at the idea, feeling very sure their slaves were
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happy right where they were. So when the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865
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abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, those southern elites
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were pretty confused when their former slaves quit and left. This shock quickly soured into a festering resentment
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that was directed at those freed slaves who wanted to actually pursue freedom
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That resentment turned into action, as those landowners then searched for alternative legal
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means to reinstate their hold over the black population and thus secure the cheap labor
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the landowners had relied upon. Those that visited the South before the Civil War, the antebellum South, often noted the
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region's warm and hospitable attitude towards visitors, if they were white. However, when the Civil War ended, that day-to-day positivity disappeared, along with the money
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that once lined the pockets of southern landowners. A contributor for Scribner's Monthly even wrote that
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There was no longer the spirit to maintain the grand, unbounded hospitality once so characteristic of the South
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For it was a grand and lordly life, that of the owner of a sugar plantation
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filled with culture, pleasure, and the refinement of living. But now, in other words, life gets harder without slave labor
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As for the black communities of the South, their initial hope and optimism over the North's victory in the Civil War was deflated
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when expected economic gains failed to materialize. In 1865, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to help millions of former black slaves
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and poor whites after the Civil War The Bureau provided food housing and medical aid established schools negotiated labor contracts and offered legal assistance It also assisted former slaves to settle on land liberated
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during the war. Between 1865 and 1870, the Freedmen's Bureau founded and managed over 3,000 schools across the South
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These schools were created for learning at every level, and it was during this time that Fisk University, Howard
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University, Hampton University, and several more of the nation's first black colleges were
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established. Though the establishment of these schools was an achievement, many didn't receive
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support from their state governments, who were often hostile to them. There often wasn't enough
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money for proper buildings, much less qualified teachers or books. Even with those shortcomings
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attendance by black students skyrocketed. And while the number of minority students rose during
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the Reconstruction, the attendance of white students dwindled. The economy in the antebellum
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South basically amounted to a small pool of landed gentry making big money by exploiting cheap labor
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in the form of slavery. When the Civil War ended and Congress banned slavery, those previously
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wealthy white landowners found their income greatly diminished. Making matters worse, most of the Southern elite had converted their fortunes into now worthless Confederate currency
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when the South seceded. Should have put it in Bitcoin. The cumulative loss of wealth for everyone involved
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is estimated at $500 million. Of course, these elites still owned considerable stretches of farmland
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which was precisely the asset they would leverage to reestablish their fortunes
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While historians believe Abraham Lincoln would have included considerable federal oversight throughout the Reconstruction years
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that was not Andrew Johnson's style. Johnson believed that apart from enforcing the abolition of slavery, swearing public loyalty to the Union, and repaying their debts
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the southern states should be allowed to rebuild their infrastructure without interference from the federal government
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As a result, political leaders in each state set out to reestablish the Old South in a new form
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Black people were technically free, but would not be allowed to vote or hold office
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Any land that had been granted by federal troops was ultimately returned to the previous owners
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Johnson's actions ultimately got him impeached by the Republican-controlled House and Senate
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but the damage was already done. His inattentiveness aided in the creation of thousands of freedmen who had no property
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nor the means to acquire it. In the first years of Reconstruction, Northerners, many of whom were former Union soldiers
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moved to the South to make some money and exert political influence over the region
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Named for their signature carpet satchels these carpet baggers worked as merchants teachers journalists and more While they were met with hostility by locals they were instrumental in educating a new generation of young black people and helping them get involved with
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and find a foothold in local politics. When the southern economy collapsed
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elite southern women, many of whom had led pampered lives, were forced to perform household tasks
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that had always been performed by slaves. This meant learning how to pump water, clean their homes, prepare meals, and tend to a variety of other manual chores
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Some of these women negotiated with their former house slaves to keep them on, in the same way their husbands might have negotiated land shares with former slaves
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And because so many men were incapacitated as a result of injuries suffered in the war
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some women had to take over the land that had been left untended. White southern landowners were armed with thousands of acres of land and the tools to farm it
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but they didn't have any money to pay people to work. Confederate cash was worth less than the paper it was printed on
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Meanwhile, newly freed black Americans, many of whom had no skills beyond those they once performed as slaves
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needed a means to earn a living. As a result, former slaveholders often struck a deal with their former slaves
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The arrangement came to be called sharecropping. The average black sharecropper's day was filled with farming a stretch of land
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that was technically their own. so long as they supplied the real landowner with enough crops at harvest
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However, the tools they used were often rented on credit because they had no money
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Since it was nearly impossible for these sharecroppers to feed their family and make enough money to pay back the landowner for the tools
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a cycle of debt evolved that left black freemen economically dependent on southern landowners
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While some consider the reconstruction a blazing trash fire, some good things did come from it. One of those things was that many black families who had been
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previously torn apart through slavery were finally able to be reunited. In the years after the war
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former slaves found themselves with options that were once unthinkable. They had the opportunity
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to move out of slave quarters, build individual homes on their plots of land, marry one another
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and, at least theoretically, raise families without fear of reprisal. In some instances
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the chaos following the Civil War saw slaves rise up and take their former owner's land and home by
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force. While that may sound like poetic justice, President Johnson didn't like that poem. Amnesty
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for the defeated southern landowners in exchange for allegiance to the Union, along with plain old
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politics, led Johnson to direct federal troops to step in and return the seized land to the
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ex owners to whom it previously belonged For similar reasons Johnson also reversed General William Tecumseh Sherman Land Redistribution Plan which had been implemented with Special Field Orders 15 during the war Later various legislative efforts
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for land redistribution failed to gain necessary political support. Interests were torn between
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appeasement and reconciliation with the South and radical Republican desire to dismantle the
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plantation system. As a result, most slaves were left with little opportunity to own land in the
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South, compelled either into a life of sharecropping or to relocate to greater opportunity, but
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equipped with few skills or resources to do so. While Black Southerners were now technically free under federal law, the reality on the
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ground was starkly different. States like Mississippi passed regulations that compelled Black people to get written
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evidence of employment every single January. Those black people found to be working without such a contract
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or any who chose to leave their property before their contract was out
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would forfeit any previous earnings and open themselves up to a rest
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The net effect was that a lot of black sharecroppers found that their day-to-day existence
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looked a lot like their days as slaves. They were still working the same land, and they were effectively incapable of leaving
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Free blacks who wanted to find work in non-farming arenas were faced with a few problems
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They had limited financial resources and had skills primarily related to agricultural work
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Plus, their local governments worked diligently to make sure change was not easy for them
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For example, during Reconstruction in South Carolina, the legislature passed a law that
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mandated blacks who took work as anything other than a farmer or servant would be subject
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to a tax of up to $100 a year. This meant black people who moved to Charleston seeking an administrative or clerical position
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or who endeavored to become an artist or craftsman found their ambitions saddled with a formidable economic burden
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Several states throughout the South passed laws that made it legal for black people to serve out prison terms by working on plantations
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So, any black artisans unable to pay their taxes, any former slaves arrested and convicted of vagrancy
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or any sharecropper unable to pay their rent could be arrested and sentenced to work on a plantation
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Huh, this looks familiar. Didn't we just fight a war to end that? For those Southerners who did not own land
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the end of the war saw no immediate change to their daily life. But that wouldn't last too long
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Crops from free black farmers that entered the market increased competition, creating downward pressure on prices
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This impacted the lives of poor white Southern farmers. The competition between these groups, both struggling for survival
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created resentment between blacks and poor whites
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