Reconstruction and the SouthReconstruction and the South 15

CONTENTS

■InDressing for the Carnival(1877), Winslow Homer shows a family of former

slaves dressing in gaudy strips of clothing to celebrate the West African festival

of Jonkonnu—an illustration of the power of family ties and cultural traditions.

Source: Winslow Homer,1836–1910, (American), Dressing for the Carnival. Oil on canvas.

H. 20 in. W. 30 in. (50.8 76.2 cm.) Signed, inscribed and dated (lower right): Winslow

Homer N.A./1877. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amelia B. Lazarus Fund, 1922. (22.220).

Photograph ©1980 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

403

Carolina. In March 1865, a few weeks after Sherman had

marched through South Carolina, Tingman joined the

U.S. Colored Troops in the Union army. Three years later,

at the age of twenty-four, he was elected to the “recon-

structed” South Carolina legislature. The withdrawal of

federal troops from the South in 1877 brought an end to

Reconstruction—and to Tingman’s career in politics. He,

too, managed to buy a farm.

Such accounts add another dimension to the usual

narrative of the Reconstruction era (1865–1877). The

period began with the liberal readmission of southern

states to the Union as proposed by Lincoln and his suc-

cessor, Andrew Johnson. Once readmitted, southern

states restricted the rights of former slaves through a

series of “Black Codes.” A furious Republican Congress

responded by overturning white southern rule

through a series of laws and constitutional amend-

ments that empowered former slaves—and their

Republican allies. A white backlash, often violent, fol-

lowed Republican rule. Ultimately, white political

power was restored, and a corrupt bargain secured the

presidency for the Republican, Hayes. When Hayes

removed Union troops from the South in 1877,

Reconstruction was over.

Deprived of federal assistance, former slaves were

obliged to make do on their own. Many failed. Only

■The Assassination of Lincoln

■Presidential Reconstruction

■Republican Radicals

■Congress Rejects Johnsonian

Reconstruction

■The Fourteenth Amendment

■The Reconstruction Acts

■Congress Supreme

■The Fifteenth Amendment

■“Black Republican”

Reconstruction: Scalawags

and Carpetbaggers

■The Ravaged Land

■Sharecropping and the

Crop-Lien System

■The White Backlash

■Grant as President

■The Disputed Election of 1876

■The Compromise of 1877

■Debating the Past:

Were Reconstruction

Governments Corrupt?

■Mapping the Past:

The Politics of Reconstruction

■Re-Viewing the Past:

Cold Mountain

HeartheAudio Chapter 15 at http://www.myhistorylab.com