In the twelve years after the Civil War—the era of Reconstruction—there were massive changes in American culture, economy, and politics. These were the years of the “Old West,” of cowboys, Indians, and buffalo hunts, of cattle drives, railroads, and...
Congress gave the Freedmen’s Bureau the authority to compensate black veterans.
Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to assist newly freed slaves in transitioning to their new status.
The Freedmen’s Bureau was a federal agency formed in 1865 to assist freed slaves during Reconstruction by providing education and economic adjustment.
During Reconstruction, many former slaves became trapped in a new system of economic exploitation known as sharecropping. Lacking capital and land of their own, former slaves were forced to work as “sharecroppers” for large landowners. Initially, planters sought to restore gang labor under the supervision of white overseers. But the freedmen, who wanted autonomy and independence, refused to sign contracts that required gang labor. Ultimately, sharecropping emerged as a compromise. Landowners divided plantations into 20- to 50-acre plots...
