Reconstruction

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Reconstruction
Rebuilding the South
2
What kinds of problems did Virginia
face following the Civil War?
3
Virginia faced social, political, and
economic problems following the Civil War.
4
What was the impact of the Civil War on the
politics and government of Virginia?
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate
States of America
Abraham Lincoln, United States President during
the Civil War
Politics the methods involved in managing a
government
5
What was the political impact of the Civil War on
Virginia?
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States
during Reconstruction
Political having to do with government
6

• When the Civil War was over, Virginia had no
  functioning government.

President Lincoln reviews Union Artillery troops,
Washington,D.C., May, 1865.

• Virginia had belonged to the Confederacy
  (Confederate States of America), which no longer
  existed.

7

• The state government had to be redesigned to make
  African Americans equal citizens.

8

• Virginia had to adopt a new constitution which
  banned slavery and gave African American men
  the right to vote.

9
What was the impact of the Civil War on the
economy of Virginia?
Sheet music by James Bland, an African American
composer
economy how a country manages its resources
impact the effect of one thing on another
10
Virginia faced many economic problems after the
Civil War.
Sharecropper child working in a cotton field
Economic producing, developing, managing wealth
and resources
11
Life for Virginians was difficult during
Reconstruction.
Sharecroppers picking cotton
Sharecroppers cabin
12
The economy of Virginia had collapsed.

• Plantations could no longer raise cotton,
  tobacco, and other products, because owners could
  not afford to pay former slaves.

13

• Plantation owners had invested all their money in
  the Southern Armies. There was no way to get
  their money back. Their country was no more.

14

• Many Southern men had been killed or injured in
  the Civil War. Even if they were well and
  young,they could not work on hundreds of acres of
  land to raise a cash crop without many workers.

Civil War hospital
15

• Slaves did not own any land and could not raise
  their own crops or feed their families.

16

• Newly freed slaves had little food, clothing,
  shelter, and no way to make a living.

17

• Confederate money had no value.

18
Railroads, bridges, and crops had been destroyed
during the war.
19
Most people in Virginia and the South were poor.
Times were hard for everybody.
20
Virginia had to rebuild the state after the
Civil War.
21
How did Virginians start to rebuild the state
after the Civil War?
22
The problems of newly freed slaves were addressed
(given attention) by the Freedmans Bureau.
23
The United States Congress created the Freedmans
Bureau to help newly freed slaves.
24
The Freedmans Bureau provided (gave) the newly
freed slaves help in several ways.
Beaufort, SC
25
Slaves were given food and medical care.
26
A new economic system developed, called
sharecropping.
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Why did sharecropping develop?
Sharecropping developed because plantation owners
lacked money to pay workers, and former slaves
needed land and work.