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Reconstruction Dbq

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African American slaves gained their freedom because of the Thirteenth Amendment. But, were not treated with all do respect. African American slaves did not gain their freedom in the Reconstruction Era. African American slaves did not gain total freedom because of an act called the Disenfranchisement. There were three different sections in this act that ex-slaves had to go through in order to have the opportunity to vote as a citizen. One of them was called the Grandfather Clause. The Grandfather Clause was introduced by Southern legislatures to allow many whites to vote without having to go through any of the other sections of the act. This clearly terminated blacks from voting. Also the Disenfranchisement also made citizens pay for a tax …show more content…
Sharecropping is an way for whites to get forced labor, but without breaking the law. For example, white landowners wanted to re-establish a workforce, so they could make money by crops. According to Document D, ex-slaves expected to receive some sort of money or land for the labor that they did when they were slaves, but did not receive any form the government. They did not have any money, land or education. The only job they knew how to do was farm. So wealthy landowners offered to let African Americans rent small sections of their land to farm on, and would loan them all the money they needed. Once the blacks could pay them back, they would, allowing the whites to have a small profit. African Americans agreed to this, they would farm on the land and would end up paying the whites way too much money in return. This would leave the whites with a huge profit. Slaves would not have enough money to start up the land the next year, so they would keep loaning money. Until eventually the whites were making a big of a profit as they were when they actually had slaves. Therefore, African Americans were still making the whites money, still really being

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