Reconstruction, Part 1The ruins of a

Train Depot after the Civil War.

Lincoln Assassinated

• Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C.

• He died the next day.

The north mourned the loss of Lincoln and a massive manhunt began to hunt down his killer.

• John Wilkes Booth was a famous theatre actor and a southern patriot. After the assassination he was hunted down and shot dead on a farm in Virginia by the U.S. Army.

Booth’s co-conspirators where tried for treason and hung.

The War ends in Texas• On June 19th 1865 Union

General Gordon Granger arrives in Galveston and announces the war is over to Texas and that all the slaves are to be set free!

• Juneteenth has been celebrated in Texas ever since as the anniversary of freedom to African Americans in Texas.

Gordon Granger

• The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Freedman• A freedman or freeman is a person who has been

freed from slavery. All former slaves were now freedmen.

• Many moved from old plantations and started “Freedtowns” or black communities.

Freedman Problems

– Many didn’t have jobs or homes.

– Some looked for long-lost relatives.

– Some traveled to cities searching for work.

– Some remained on the plantation working for wages or a portion of the crop.

• The Freedmen’s Bureau was created by Congress to help former slaves by supplying food, shelter, medicine, and in many cases, jobs.

• The freedmen’s bureau faced many challenges from southerners who would attempt to intimidate and in some cases kill freedmen’s bureau workers. • The Freedmen’s bureau's major success was in the creation of schools for the former slaves and their children.

Freedman’s Teacher School

Presidential Reconstruction

1.States had to accept the 13th amendment that ended slavery.

2.States had to declare that their secession had been illegal.

3.States had to cancel all war debts.

4.To receive the right to vote, all adult white males had to declare

loyalty to the United States.

Andrew Johnson, as the President after Lincoln, set up four requirements for southern states to return to the Union.

The 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson

• Andrew Johnson named Andrew Hamilton, a Unionist, as governor of Texas. He called for a new constitutional convention.

• James W. Throckmorton was elected as president of the convention. He had been a Unionist, but fought in the Confederate army for Texas. Therefore he was thought to be a good choice.

James W. Throckmorton

The Constitution of 1866• The Constitution of 1866 was the same as the Constitution of 1845, except that slavery was ended.

• Texas refused to adopt the 13th amendment. President Johnson agreed to accept Texas back into the U.S. anyway.

• The Southern governments also passed “Black Codes”.

• These laws attempted to force former slaves back to labor on plantations.

“Black Codes”• African Americans

were second class citizens.

• They could not marry whites.

• They could not hold public office, vote, or serve on a jury.