Ms.Fielder

Hello and welcome to my blog! If you were wondering why all of the blog entries have the same dates it is because I had done the entries out of order and so to make grading easier I have set them on the same day but at different times so they go in order.

The Klu Klux Klan

The Klu Klux Klan also known as the KKK is infamous for it's racism and cruel treatment towards African Americans and it's extreme measures taken to make sure none of them succeeded. The KKK dates all the way back to 1865 after the civil war, it was founded on December 24 by six well educated Confederate veterans from Tennessee with the goal of showing white supremacy. The name Klu Klux Klan is a longer form of the name Kluklux klan, which is based off the Greek word kyklos (with clan at the end) the word kyklos means circle so the name Klu Klux Klan means circle clan which many historians believe they choose these words to say that its an inner circle and are uninviting or unwelcoming. Throughout their time the KKK has caused a lot of suffering in the African American community by lynching, burning, stoning, and torturing them and by also burning their schools, cars, and houses. Although the law or government did not try to stop the KKK's rain of terror on the African Americans they eventually faded away by 1946 to nothing major, just a group of people against African Americans.    

The KKK

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

After the civil war there were three new amendments passes, they were amendments 13, 14, and 15. The thirteenth amendment made slavery illegal everywhere in the United States which left more than 40 million newly freed slaves out on the street which was what the Freedmen's Bureau fixed. The 14th amendment granted citizen ship to all freedmen and equal protection under the law, this amendment also prevented and confederate veterans to hold office which helped prevent any further succession due to corrupt command. The last new amendment (the 15th) granted the right to vote to all men regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, this amendment helped guaranty the rights of African Americans because it gave them the opportunity to vote in a leader that they knew would not try to enslave or hurt them.  

Reconstruction Plan

After the end of the war the country was in ruin, cities were burned to the ground, farms and land were war ravaged, many slave owners lost money, and millions of slaves were free and had no where to go so the United States set out down the road of reconstruction. Lincolns plan was to get all the states back into the Union as quick as possible so as to prevent another rebellion and to keep their economy on tack, also to have the states just take an oath of allegiance and when 10% of the state had taken that oath they would rejoin the Union, and although they were back in the Union they were still placed under military rule/guard. Lincolns plan for a better faster reconstruction of American was working fine until his assassination by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. President Andrew Johnson, the president who took over after Lincoln, also approved of Lincolns decisions.

Share Cropping/Tenant Farming

After the Union won the war 40 million slaves were released and although all of them had the freedom they had always wanted they didn't know what to do with it, almost all of the slaves that were freed had little to no money and could not afford things such as food, clothing, a home, and not even an education so they started sharecropping (or tenant farming). Share cropping is when a land owner hires a tenant to go out into the field and grow crops, the tenant was provided land, tools, a shelter (a shack), seed, maybe a mule and the local merchants if, kind enough, would provide basic needs such as clothing, and food. When it was time to sell the crop their   the land lord would take the crops and leave from 1/3 to 1/2 of the share of crops for the person to sell. Although though they had just come out of slaver where they did something similar they realized that it would be much better because they were paid and so most of the newly free slaves went into sharecropping so that they could support them selves and their families. In many ways sharecropping was good but it also came with a price, many of the living conditions were better but not good enough to keep people totally safe from weather, disease, starvation, insects, animals, and many other things, even humans!

The Freedman's Burea

After the end of the Civil war many of the newly freed slaves were left on the streets with no money, food, job, house, or education, they were given the opportunity to stay with their masters and work they went off into freedom not questioning theses things. Along with bad living conditions they were constantly having their rights taken away so to help fix this the Radical Republicans initiated the Freedmen's Bureau, an organization with the goal of protecting the rights of free slaves and also helping to educate them also giving them better living conditions such as a living place, and the opportunity to get a job. The Freedmen's Bureau helped more than 40,000 newly freed slaves over the course of their organization and has helped to be the basis of many more organizations since.

Andersonville

Andersonville is one of the most notorious confederate war prisons, they are known for giving captured soldiers bad and little food, poor shelter, and no sanitation. The prison was opened in February of 1864 and covered 16.5 acres of land, the director of this prison camp was Henry Wirz who guided all the prison affairs. Through out the entire time Andersonville was a prison it was constantly low on food supply, each prisoner was given only small rations so that they could feed every one, more than 14,000 prisoners died of malnutrition, along with poor food conditions they had polluted water filled with dirt, grim rotten food, disease, and human waste. Thanks to the poor water and food conditions many of the soldiers starved or died of infection, also many died in fights with other captured soldiers over stuff to prevent these deaths such as food, or a clean water source. When Sherman went on his March to the Sea he captured Andersonville and what he and his men saw shocked them and every person who saw them after the war, the soldiers who were in the camp were bone thin and sickly and they look as though they were living skeletons. After the war Henry Wirz was put in a war trial, convicted, and sentenced to death, he was the only person from the war to be sentenced to death for war crimes.