What kinds of labor systems did the Freedmen’s Bureau agents report during Reconstruction and what kinds developed after?

Chapter 15 and 16 History Forum

Watch the video Slavery By Another Name in the Media and Videos File on your Menu, read the “Sharecropping Contract,” and/or explore the documentary’s website (https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/classrooms-communities/ )Then answer 4 of the following questions, at least one from each section.

1. In what forms has forced labor been practiced in the past?
2. What kinds of labor systems did the Freedmen’s Bureau agents report during Reconstruction and what kinds developed after?
A. How did these systems operate?
B. How can contracts be used to take advantage of someone?
C. How was the criminal justice system manipulated to aid forced labor?
D. What role did contracts play in forced labor? How were contract terms extended?
E. How were men and women bought and sold through forced labor
a. For Conflict Leasing:
a. What role did convict leasing play in the South after emancipation?
b. How was convict leasing in conflict with the promises of emancipation and Reconstruction?
c. What impact do you think convict leasing had on blacks in the South?
a. For Sharecropping:
a. How did the process work
b. In what ways did African Americans in the South demonstrate an understanding of their
c. Sharecropper contract?
d. of sharecropping claimed it was “slavery with a paycheck.” To what extent do you agree or disagree with this evaluation? Explain your answer.
e. In what ways did sharecropping perpetuate (continue) the dependence of African Americans on white landowners
f. Why didn’t sharecropping families just leave, revolt or purchase their own farm?
a. For Peonage:
a. When did it take place? What was going on then at the time?
b. Where did it take place? c. Who was involved?
c. What factors contributed to its existence?
d. How was it able to continue for so long?
e. What impacts might this history still hold today?
2. How is the forced labor that was practiced in the American South after the Civil War connected to broader American history?
f. What impacts did the use of forced labor have in the American South?
g. Do these impacts continue to affect us today?
3. List of all the strides — political, racial, social, economic — that past generations have made since the various forms of forced labor took place in the American South after the Civil War?
4. When reading the chapter or watching the video Slavery By Another Name, which biography, story, event or fact or even speaker jumped out at you?
a. What were you most surprised by/angered by/saddened by/happy about/ etc and why?

b. What things did you already know and what did you learn from the video?

c. Did you know that Convict Labor was used in Sugar Land and that recently an unmarked graveyard for convicts that died was found?

d. What do you think should happen to those bodies? What about their families?

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