Reconstruction Free Response Essay

The Reconstruction period from 1865 through 1877 set forth many goals, some particularly regarding African americans. The majority effort of Reconstruction was how to readmit the confederacy into the Union and the issue of the newly freed slaves. The government instituted many differents tactics at the attempt of granting and protecting the rights of African americans. However, these attempts proved challenging as the South put great opposition on the efforts of the Federal government to ensure the rights of the newly freed African american population.

The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were created during the reconstruction period to guarantee civil rights to African americans and the federal government made an attempt to ensure that these rights were not infringed upon by Southern opposition.The fourteenth amendment addresses laws of citizenship and equals protection of the laws. The fifteenth amendment granted suffrage to African american males. However, the southern states instituted poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics in order to limit the opportunities and rights of African americans.

A large attempt at ensuring the rights given to African americans by the Reconstruction amendments was the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau had a focus primarily on the education of freed African americans. Despite the effort of the Bureau, southerners continued to mistreat and even take advantage of the African americans. Sharecropping was an extremely unjust system of farming used by Southern farmers to bait African americans which almost always resulted in a large portion of debt for the African americans. Sharecropping was as close to slavery as the southern farmers could get while extorting the hard work of african american laborers for their own benefit. Sharecropping was one of the many ways that southerners impeded the civil rights of African americans and the goals of Reconstruction.

While Reconstruction set