Unfortunately, slaves who did not choose to leave their plantations helped establish the precedence of sharecropping, which led to the virtual re-enslavement of a new generation of African-Americans after Reconstruction. Under the practice of sharecropping, a farmer works on someone else's land, and promises to pay the landowner with a percentage of the crop. The problem with sharecropping is that the tenant farmer often has to buy supplies from the landowner and pay all types of fees. The end result was that many tenant farmers became more indebted to the landowners with every passing year:
As Republicans in the South were driven from office or killed by terrorists, sharecroppers were left without protection and were frequently cheated by white landowners. Laws forced debtors to work the land until debts were paid, and landowners often manipulated credit to insure that sharecroppers ended each year in debt. Those who questioned the landowner's accounting might be arrested for bad debt. Those convicted were often leased out to work on the same plantation, but without wages. Landowners in need of laborers might have local police invoke vagrancy laws against blacks who refused low-paying jobs. (MSN Encarta, 2007).
These practices were expanded and exacerbated under Jim Crow, and, in reality, continue to exist in some of the more isolated and rural parts of the American south.
Politically, Reconstruction gave African-Americans the opportunity to meaningfully participate in self-governance. Because the former Confederate states were federally occupied, former slaves were able to exercise the right to vote. Not only did this mean that former slaves had an impact on who was governing them, but also that African-Americans could attain office. Some of these changes were meaningful, while others were largely symbolic.
For example, "in states with the largest black populations, African-Americans and their white Republican allies established and improved public education for white and black students, ended property qualifications for voting, abolished imprisonment for debt, and integrated public facilities." (MSN Encarta, 2007). However, when John W. Menard became the first African-American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1868, the change was largely symbolic because Congress refused to seat Menard. (MSN Encarta, 2007). However, Congress eventually had to recognize African-American representatives: "in all, 20 blacks from Southern states served in the U.S. House of Representatives and 2 in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction." (MSN Encarta, 2007). Local and state level officials met with more success; African-Americans were elected in high numbers and demonstrated extreme competence as elected officials during Reconstruction.
The increased political power of African-Americans elicited an incredibly negative reaction from southern Democrats, which continues to impact race relations in the United...
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