[Edisto Island, S.C. October 20 or 21, 1865]
General It Is with painfull Hearts that we the committe address you, we Have thorougholy considered the order which you wished us to Sighn,1 we wish we could do so but cannot feel our rights Safe If we do so, General we want Homesteads; we were promised Homestead's by the government,2 If It does not carry out the promises Its agents made to us, If the government Haveing concluded to befriend Its late enemies and to neglect to observe the principles of common faith between Its self and us Its allies In the war you said was over, now takes away from them all right to the soil they stand upon save such as they can get by again working for your late and thier all time ememies. If the government does so we are left In a more unpleasant condition than our former
we are at the mercy of those who are combined to prevent us from getting land enough to lay our Fathers bones upon. We Have property In Horses, cattle, carriages, & articles of furniture, but we are landless and Homeless, from the Homes we Have lived In In the past we can only do one of three things Step Into the public road or the sea or remain on them working as In former time and subject to thier will as then. We can not resist It In any way without being driven out Homeless upon the road. You will see this Is not the condition of really freemen You ask us to forgive the land owners of our Island, You only lost your right arm. In war and might forgive them.
The man who tied me to a tree & gave me 39 lashes & who stripped and flogged my mother & my sister & who will not let me stay In His empty Hut except I will do His planting & be Satisfied with His price & who combines with others to keep away land from me well knowing I would not Have any thing to do with Him If I Had land of my own. that man, I cannot well forgive. Does It look as If He Has forgiven me, seeing How He tries to keep me In a condition of Helplessness General, we cannot remain Here In such condition and If the government permits them to come back we ask It to Help us to reach land where we shall not be slaves nor compelled to work for those who would treat us as such we Have not been treacherous, we Have not for selfish motives allied to us those who suffered like us from a common enemy & then Haveing gained our purpose left our allies In thier Hands There Is no rights secured to us there Is no law likely to be made which our Hands can reach. The state will make laws that we shall not be able to Hold land even If we pay for It Landless, Homeless. Voteless. we can only pray to god & Hope for His Help, your Infuence & assistanceÂ
With consideration of esteem your Obt Servts In behalf of the people
Henry Bram
Ishmael Moultrie
yates Sampson
March 1862
Early in the Civil War, the Union navy bombards the Sea Islands off of South Carolina. The owners and overseers of the cotton plantations there flee, leaving behind their slaves. The U.S. government wants the former slaves to continue to grow cotton for wages, so it sends a group of northern abolitionists to educate and supervise them. But the former slaves challenge that plan; they want to work independently and grow vegetables to support their families.
November-December 1864
General William T. Sherman of the Union army marches through Georgia and defeats the Confederate army there. Along the way, thousands of former slaves, now free and without any means of support, follow him.
January 1865
On January 6, 1865, using his power as a military commander, Sherman issues Special Field Order Number 15, which sets aside more than 400,000 acres of abandoned coastal plantations from South Carolina to Florida for settlement exclusively by ex-slaves.
On January 12th in Savannah, Georgia, Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton meet with a group of 20 African American ministers and ask them what the former slaves need in order to take care of themselves. The ministers answer, “The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor–and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare. We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own.â€
March 1865
The U.S. Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Land, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom.
April 1865
President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.Â
May 1865
President Andrew Johnson offers amnesty to most Confederates. Under the amnesty plan, southern planters reclaim abandoned lands occupied by freedmen.
September 1865
Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania proposes a bill in Congress that would allow the federal government to confiscate all lands in the former Confederacy owned by slave owners and redistribute the land in 40-acre portions to ex-slaves and poor whites. Few other Congressmen support this bill, however, and it is never even voted on.
Students will summarize arguments for and against redistribution of land to former slaves at the end of the Civil War. Â
Step 1: Â Review with students the situation of former slaves at the end of the Civil War. The teacher may review points from the historical context or distribute the reading from Freedom's Unfinished Revolution. Make sure that students understand that the question of redistribution of land to freedmen was unsettled and that many competing visions were in play. Â
Step 2: Pass out the worksheet and copies of "A Freedman and a General Discuss the Meaning of Freedom." Ask for two students to read the script, one person as the general, one person as the freedmen. Use this document to model for students what they will be doing with the other documents. Students should summarize the document on one of the sides of the house by completing the statement with the name of the speaker and circling either "distributed" or "returned" and then explain why on the lines provided. Before moving onto the next step, ask for students to share their responses and make sure everyone is on track.
Step 3: Assign students into groups of four. Give each group member one of the four remaining documents. (The teacher may choose to distribute documents according to reading level of students; see below for suggestions.) Each student should read his/her document and fill in a space on the worksheet. Then group members should explain their documents to each other and share their summarizing statements so that each member's worksheet is complete. Â
Low-level reading: Photograph, "James Hopkinson's Plantation, Planting Sweet Potatoes
Mid-level reading: An Ex-Slave Protests Eviction from "the Promised Land"
Mid-level reading: A Southern Planter Argues that "the Negro Will Not Work"
High-level reading: Thaddeus Stevens Calls for Redistribution of Confederate Land
Step 4: Wrap up the activity by asking students to consider what they think would be the best option at the end of the Civil War, and explain why. Â Ask students to predict what will happen and how different factions (southern planters, freedpeople, Northern politicians) will react.Â
This worksheet aligns to Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
RHSS.6-8.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
RHSS.6-8.2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
Students will be able to describe the impact of new freedoms during Reconstruction on African-American families.
Students will be able to describe how white backlash to African Americans' new freedoms threatened black families. Â
Students will analyze primary sources to determine the changes and continuities in African-American life during Reconstruction. Â
The slave family was very vulnerable to the whims of masters: family members could be sold away at any time; masters, not parents, told children what to do; punishment was meted out by the master, not the parent. Slave marriages were not legally recognized. The first priority for many freedmen during Reconstruction was to reconstruct their families and exercise the new social freedoms that came with Reconstruction. Â
These new liberties during Reconstruction led quickly to a backlash in the South at the state and local level of government and society. The backlash of the Black Codes set up new challenges to freedmen that instituted a pattern of governance regarding marriage and family law which rolled back the more egalitarian ideals of Reconstruction.
This set of lessons could connect to a larger unit about freedmen’s new social, political and economic freedoms that were challenged during Reconstruction. The unit would culminate in a five-paragraph long document-based essay asking students to consider the social, economic and political changes and impacts of Reconstruction. The purpose of this lesson, as tied to that larger unit goal, is to expose students to the relevant outside information about social freedoms and challenges that these documents depict. Students will leave this lesson having practiced writing one of the three body paragraphs of this larger assessment.
Step 1: Ask students to describe the family unit of a slave on a southern plantation. Â Write the students' responses on the board in a T-chart to refer back to later (one side labeled "Families Under Slavery" and one side labeled "Families During Reconstruction.") Â You may prompt students to focus on:Â
Living arrangements
Personal relationships within the family: men and women, parents and children, fathers and mothers
Who is in charge of: the household, the children, resources/money, farming, and where family members live?Â
Step 2: Group jigsaw on new social freedoms gained and exercised by Freedmen during ReconstructionÂ
Materials needed (see New Liberties and New Threats worksheet):Â
Marriage of a Colored soldier at Vicksburg by Chaplain Warren of the Freedmen’s Bureau [low-skill level]
Louis Hughes document on finding his mother and sister-in-law [mid-skill level]
Anna Maria Coffee interview for the Works Progress Administration Ex-Slaves Narrative project [mid-skill level]
A Freedman seeks to reunite his family [high-skill level]
Organize students into groups of four, grouped heterogeneously by skill level. Â Assign each student in the group a document according to his skill level. Â Tell students that each student in the group will be responsible for reading and viewing that document, answering comprehension questions about it, and sharing the learned information and ideas in the document with his fellow group members. Â Allow students time to complete their worksheets. Â
Step 3:Â Once students complete their group work, return to the T-chart and fill in a few points about how families during Reconstruction changed. Â Then ask the entire class to predict
How might these new social freedoms threaten the social order of the pre-Civil War South?Â
Why might these new social freedoms have been perceived as so threatening?Â
Who might have considered them threatening?Â
You may prompt students to focus on:Â
Farmer who owns land can no longer divide families of freedmen who work land: how does that change his labor force?Â
If families can stick together, how does that make the freedmen less vulnerable to the farmers’ terms of employment?Â
How does a marriage license have power as a written document? What other legal documents previously defined African Americans? What is different between a marriage license and a bill of sale?Â
Step 4: Tell class that now they will look at the ways these new social freedoms were challenged. Â Project "A Republican Scarecrow Fails to Staunch Southern Violence." Â Ask students as whole class discussion:Â
Describe the image: list everything you see including people, objects, words, shades, clothing, buildings, etc.
Where are the Freedmen in this image? How do you know? Use evidence from the image to support your answer.
Are they being challenged in any way? By whom? How do you know? Use evidence to support your answer.
Why do you think this family is being attacked? Explain. Use evidence from the image to support your answer.
Based on this image: How were new social freedoms for freed African Americans challenged during Reconstruction?
Step 5: Document-Based Questions about challenges to Freedmen’s new social freedomsÂ
Materials needed:Â
Black Codes Restrict Newly Won Freedoms: Labor and Contracts: GA/NC [low-skill level]
Black Codes Restrict Newly Won Freedoms: Interracial Marriage [mid-skill level]
Black Codes Restrict Newly Won Freedoms: Labor and Contracts: AL [mid-skill level]
A South Carolina Landowner Attempts to Re-enslave a Free Child [high-skill level]
Students stay in their groups of four, grouped heterogeneously by skill level. Â Give each student in the group all four documents and tell them they will be responsible for reading and viewing those documents and answering the scaffolding question about each one. Â Students may work collaboratively or in a jig-saw to break-down and analyze the documents, but each must answer the scaffolding question on his own handout.Â
Step 6:Â Instruct students to write a paragraph-length analysis with specific document evidence and outside information answering the question: How were new social freedoms for freed African Americans challenged during Reconstruction?
Students stay in their groups of four, grouped heterogeneously by skill level.
Students should use the scaffolding question answers from Step 5 to construct a paragraph together which answers the question: How were new social freedoms for freed African Americans challenged during Reconstruction?Â
Paragraphs shouldÂ
Cite three of the five documents from Steps 4 and/or 5 that explain how new social freedoms were challenged. Â
Include outside information from Step 2 explaining new social freedoms exercised.
Remind students to refer to the writing guidelines on their worksheet Summary.
Step 7: (Optional) Have students write their paragraphs on transparencies and present [read] them to the class. Students receive feedback from the classmates who are called upon by the teacher to tell one strength, one weakness and one suggestion for improvement about the written paragraph each group writes.