Preview

Assignment 1 AMH2020

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
654 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Assignment 1 AMH2020
Assignment #1
Sarah L. Ribeiro
AMH2020
September 11, 2014

During reconstruction, the meaning of freedom suited many different types of interpretation; the perception of freedom between former slaves and their slaves masters were very contradictory. To begin with, African-Americans had suffered severe abuse over those years of slavery, so to them, the meaning of freedom was basically a hope that in the future, they won’t experience all kind of punishment and exploration that they have been experienced so far. Besides that, formers slaves were demanding equal civil and political rights. In the same way, they valued their freedom by establishing their own schools and churches, reuniting families that were separated under slavery and seeking financial dependence. Foner (2014) supports the same argument: “Blacks relished the opportunity to demonstrate their liberation from the regulation, significant and trivial, associated with slavery. They openly held mass meeting and religious services free of white supervision” (p. 557) . In addition, Foner (1014) also found “Former slaves’ ideas of freedom, like those of rural people throughout the world, were directly related to landownership” (p. 560) . On other hand, their slaves masters’ perception of freedom was different. For example, most Southerners reacted the emancipation with dismay, according to Foner (2014) , Southern leaders didn’t want to accept reality “Freedom still meant hierarchy and mastery; it was a privilege not a right, a carefully defined legal status rather than an open-ended entitlement” (p. 561) . As the oppression to African-Americans continued, congress created three bills in order to improve Africans-Americans’ conditions; they were the enforcement Acts. Foner (2014) explains: “ Congress adopted three Enforcement Acts, outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the army against them” (p. 585) . Additionally, this act provided to the former slaves the



Cited: Foner, E. (2014). "What is freedom?": Reconstruction. In Give me liberty!: An American history (Seagull 4th ed., Vol. 2). New York: W. W. Norton &.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Eric Foner's Forever Free

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, author Eric Foner analyzes the traditional understandings of the Reconstruction period immediately following the American Civil War. Foner begins by explaining that such traditional understandings came from white Southerners who blamed their misfortunes on greedy Northerners and inept African Americans. Rather than agreeing with such traditional understandings, Foner attempts to overthrow such beliefs by arguing in favor of African Americans. Particularly through their development of beneficial institutions, their creation of new economies, and their contributions to both local and national governments.…

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    An eight-year-old African American boy sat on the floor of his church. His mother and father were talking quietly in the corner. He only heard pieces of the conversation. Things like “abolitionist” and “segregation” were repeated often. Many questions ran through his head. Questions like ‘Why do the whites have separate churches?’ And ‘Why is my dad not allowed to practice medicine?’ There were 221,000 free blacks in the sixteen Northern states in 1860. That is 4.9% of the African American population. They were called “free”, but did they really have liberty? Free people act as they wish and are unimpeded by others telling them what to do. Based on the political, social and economic rights of blacks in the North, we can conclude that they were not very free in comparison to the whites around them.…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Sam Patch

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Cited: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. 2nd ed. 1. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. Print.…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Seagull 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 194…

    • 2177 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Benedict, M.L. (2006). The blessings of liberty: A concise history of the Constitution of the United States (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Publishing.…

    • 2785 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Woodstock

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Foner, Eric. (2006). Give me liberty! An American History (Seagull ed.) New York; W.W. Norton.…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    history, an influence that has yet to be fully recognized. During this remarkable period of…

    • 6538 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Despite the carnage and bloody struggle to end slavery in the American Civil War, the majority of white folks, in free and former slave states alike, continued to openly express racist, nativist, and white supremacist beliefs in their daily post-war lives. Even as the federal government passed revolutionary legislation, created protective measures and expanded the overall powers of the central government, African Americans remained systematically burdened and barred by vast inequalities that manifested in political, economic, and social spheres. Although Reconstruction expanded fundamental rights and freedoms to all people on paper, those same freedoms became subsequently diluted and diffused by reactionary and conservative elements that sought to maintain the unequal society that had…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The end of the Civil War, and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation should have meant that African Americans, who had long toiled under the rule of slave owners, would finally be treated as equals. The renowned words of our founding fathers- “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. ”- would finally become a reality. This nevertheless, was far from the case. Paradoxically, after the Civil War, and the supposed end of slavery, African Americans and other people of color were not truly free.…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ex slaves defined freedom after reconstruction as not having to listen to the white man, by not being controlled whenever they wanted and to build their own society such as churches, schools, and businesses. They also defined freedom as having the same rights as the whites.…

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the antebellum South, slavery provided the economic foundation that supported the dominant planter ruling class. Under slavery the structure of white supremacy was hierarchical and patriarchal, resting on male privilege and masculinist honor, entrenched economic power, and raw force. Black people necessarily developed their sense of identity, family relations, communal values, religion, and to an impressive extent their cultural autonomy by exploiting contradictions and opportunities within a complex fabric of paternalistic give-and-take. The working relationships and sometimes tacit expectations and obligations between slave and slaveholder made possible a functional, and in some cases highly profitable, economic system. Despite the exploitativeness and oppression of this system, slaves emerge in numerous antebellum slave narratives as actively, sometimes aggressively, in search of freedom, whether in the…

    • 507 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine living in a time where owning slaves was normal and popular. Well slaves suffered a ton of hardships in the south, but had some freedom in the North. Some freedoms were churches,education, and voting in some states but they did in fact have many restrictions.…

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The definition of freedom is the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. This is exactly what the freedmen and women were experiencing. The 13th amendment and document A say that slavery is abolished and owning slaves is illegal. This links so perfectly with the definition of freedom. This also means that slaves were truly free during reconstruction, and will bet extending on that in this essay.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History Analysis

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages

    What is Freedom? If you were to ask a freedmen or freedwoman during the age of Reconstruction in 1865, the answer would be land, stability, religious liberty and education. African Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by their experience as slaves and observation of the free society around them1; they were eager to demonstrate their liberation from the harsh living situations, and extreme rules and regulations they were accustomed to while going through slavery. Goals were set to become farmers or/also called “Yeoman Farmers,” meaning a small independent farmer through family owned labor. A Baptist minister by the name of Garrison Frazier, who purchased the freedom of himself and his wife in 1856, was chosen to express the common sentiments upon the matters of freedmen in the State of Georgia. Frazier states that “The best way we can take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn in and till it by our labor- and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare; and to assist Government, …We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own.” 2 Like rural people throughout the world, former slaves’ ideas of freedom were directly related to land ownership.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1860-1877, Slaves were considered to to free, but they really weren’t. An example would be from the Black Codes in Opelousas, Louisiana stated, “No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within the limits of the town under any circumstances.” This literally says that freed slaves were not free. If they were free, whites would let them rent, buy and keep a house, but in this instance the whites are not letting them do that. Imagine how the other codes sound. Henry Adams is a former slave who made a statement to the government and stated, “You had better carry a pass. I said, I will see whether I am free by going without a pass. I met four white men about six miles south of town. One of them asked me who I belonged to. I told him…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays