One example of this is Corp D’Afrique regime which started out as a confederacy black regime. Another all Black troop was the 54th Massachusetts, who with the help of Frederick Douglass, attracted free Black men. So many African American men were attracted to the 54th regime, that the 55th regime was organized. Unfortunately, most of these Blacks did not serve in combat and were ill-equipped which lead to massive loss. Blacks had to fight under the threat of death with little to no arms and under threat of execution by Confederates would begin to treat prisoners of war as rebellious slave and order their massacre.
The fear of slave rebellion distracted both the Southern slaveholder and the Northern invader. The Confederate government never used them as soldiers, but it did make them go into labor brigades to build fortifications, dig latrines, and haul supplies. As the war went on, Southern manpower shortages became more of a problem. Slaves quickly took advantage of the situation, slowing down their pace of labor and not following orders, The South imposed a Cotton embargo and many Southerners believed they could persuade European intervention in the war by refusing to grow or give
In the south, people were blaming their financial problems on the newly freed slaves that lived around them. Lynchings would become a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks. 73% of people lynched were black. Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people was lynched. That is only 27.3%.
Most of the African Americans were just slaves to the Whites. The African Americans didn’t usually have any say in their lives because they were unequal to the Whites. The African Americans were forced to sharecrop because they could not afford their own land. Their pay was less than minimal. The African Americans were treated unfairly and they were the first group of people that were laid off during any economic downturn.
‘Federal government was the main obstacle to the achievements of African American civil rights between 1865 and 1945.’ How far do you agree? African Americans fight to gain civil rights was a long one; politically they aimed to get the right to vote and to exercise this right. Federal government allowed anti-civil rights groups to deter African Americans from utilising their vote and in 1866 ‘black codes’ were enforced which further prohibited Africa Americans from voting. Federal government allowed states to have control over passing their own laws which states manipulated to prevent African Americans from exercising their political rights won through the fifteenth amendment in 1869. After 1869 federal government remained an obstacle throughout this time period.
The reaction of free blacks to slave codes largely depended on where they lived. According to the Library of Congress, many free blacks in the South could do little in the way of opposing the slave codes because they were barred from traveling or assembling peacefully. In Northern cities, free blacks opposed the slave codes through voting, writings and buying slaves who were friends or family members. Question 3: What did abolitionists do in response to the slave codes? Well, the abolitionists started Antislavery organizations and societies.
The civil war was started in 1861 which was caused by slavery. It was suppose to be a white man's war. White southerners would wage war to make the confederacy a seperate and independent nation free to promote slavery. As a result the white northerners took up arms to maintain the Union but not to free a single slave. The blacks has contributed a lot of work to gain their own freedom.
There were many problems African Americans were facing before the New Deal became an instrument in the saving of the United States economy. Because of the Depression, African Americans workers were pushed out of jobs, favoring White workers. Because Blacks were last hired and first fired, it made it easier for them to lose their jobs at faster rates. The near subjugation of the tenant farming system destroyed many work opportunities for blacks to have any work because many black agricultural workers did not have other job skills, they were highly unlikely to get employment elsewhere. Many black farmers could not obtain contracts for their crops.
These examples would explain how the lives of Southerners would be ruined and that the country would come to an end if slaves were freed. On page 22, Dew gave portions of a speech, by Governor John J. Petus of Mississippi that was given to the state legislature. In this speech he said, “Secession was the only way to avoid the blight of Black Republicans politics and free Negro morals”, he continued to say that if slaves were freed, Mississippi would become “a cesspool of vice, crime and infamy” (22). Petus was attempting to rationalize that the state would become a haven of criminals if slaves were freed. What he was more than likely concerned with was the idea of losing the vast revenue accrued from slavery, but he used scare tactics to get approval for secession.
Johnson was a southerner so he gave back the southerners their political rights. By the end of 1865 most of the former confederate states canceled the acts of secession but refused to abolish slavery, to give full citizenship to African American men. So, the union generals who governed the South blocked anyone who would not take an oath of loyalty to the union. President Johnson tried to stop many of these policies, and the House of Representatives impeached Johnson. He remained as President but began to give in more often to the Republican congress.