My First Blog: Reconstruction America After the Civil War: Reflection

After watching Reconstruction America After the Civil War, I found it interesting how after slavery ended, Black children would go into apprenticeship arrangements. This was because many people had hard transitions after slavery ended.

The parents of the children did not want their kids to go into these apprenticeship arrangements. The children had no choice because they would not be able to protect their kids when they were not with them. The parents knew that there was a chance of their child being beaten or even sexually assaulted. This was an extreme form of exploitation which was being used during this time.

After doing some more research on the topic, I was also able to learn about another thing that was big during this time Convict Leasing. Something that often led to Convict Leasing was Black people would get arrested for minor offenses and then would be leased to private companies. This practice was used to continue the economic exploitation of Black labor.

One other thing I would like to mention is sharecropping, which was when a Black farmer would work on a portion of a landowner's land in exchange for a piece of the crops. Sharecropping ended up doing a lot more harm than good due to putting the Black farmers in debt and making them depend on these crops where if they lost their access could make them lose their income and way of getting food. This made it difficult for Black farmers to break free from economic hardship.

Although not all labor agreements were taking advantage of Black people, there were many people affected by these situations making it a noteworthy moment in history. This transition from slavery to freedom created many complex issues in this challenging time in history. The exploitation of labor continued after the abolition of slavery, making it a dark chapter for America.