Max Gabel

His 102

Prof. Murat

4/17/2014

Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, Sharecropping and the Rise of the United States

The Black Codes, the Jim Crow Laws, and sharecropping at the time of its existence had a large impact on the rise of the United States of America economically, politically, and socially. The Black Codes were created during the Reconstruction Era to keep blacks under white land owners control legally and to make profits off of their labor. After the Civil War, the Southern economy found itself in need of a new method to control their former slaves. Conflict arose for white land owners who were in desperate need to re-establish a workforce and freed blacks who were seeking autonomy and independence. There were millions of former slaves looking for land to settle on during the reconstruction period. There was a huge void in the labor economy that needed to be filled during this time period. Sharecropping played a role in helping blacks find a place to settle unfairly; and continuing the cycle of abusing the blacks in the USA. The Black Codes were enacted in 1864 but wasn't fully eradicated until 100 years later in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Jim Crow Laws came into play shortly after the eradication of the Black Codes. The Jim Crow Laws were used to instill fear into the African Americans and create different social classes.

In the early years of the Reconstruction Era, most Blacks in the south were left without land and forced to work on large plantations owned by whites in order to earn a living. In an effort to regulate the labor force and keep white supremacy dominant in the postwar South, former Confederate state legislatures soon passed restrictive legislation denying blacks legal equality and political rights, and requiring them to sign yearly labor contracts. This act was passed in 1865 and were known as "The Black Codes", which basically denied blacks certain rights that white people had such as owning land and voting. Also it was used as a tool of the economic elite and politicians to play on people's fears and emotions to get elected. It was Americas class structure, filled with racial fears and prejudice that controlled peoples thinking. It helped unite people based on color and not class standing. The codes contained other controversial matters such as apprenticeship, this wasn't what apprenticeship is today where someone studies underneath a master in a certain trade like stone masonry. This kind of apprenticeship offered another source of labor for white land owners by granting them legal custody of black children against their will. These children were either orphans, or kids of vagrant blacks and they were "apprentices" until the age of 21.

The reason all of these racist and unjust things attributed to the rise of the United States is because in the years the Black Codes were enacted it provided a huge economical boost to the agricultural system, which was the primary source of wealth in the United States during the 1800's. The Black Codes helped create an underclass which provided the continuous supply of low wage labor. When a black person was declared vagrant because they did not have a permanent residence and were unemployed received a fine; then a vagrant person could be arrested, fined, and bound out for a term of labor if unable to pay the fine; thus fulfilling the cycle of never ending cheap wages to free labor.

"A Republican victory in the Congressional elections of 1866 led to the passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, beginning a new phase of Reconstruction. During this period, the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments granted African Americans the right to vote, equality before the law and other rights of citizenship." As expressed by Marler (Marler p113-137). Despite giving African Americans the same rights as citizens as whites, the federal government along with the Republican-controlled state governments took little concrete action to help freed blacks in their mission to own land. The system of sharecropping had come to dominate agriculture across the cotton-planting South. Under this system, black families would rent small pieces of land, to work on themselves. The majority of the crops they would farm would go to the land owner and whatever was left would go to the family renting out the land; usually it was an extremely small portion of what they harvested. "Some blacks managed to acquire enough money to move from sharecropping to renting or owning land by the end of the 1860s, but many more went into debt or were forced by poverty or the threat of violence to sign unfair and exploitative sharecropping or labor contracts that left them little hope of improving their situation." As expressed by Shlomowitz (Shlomowitz p569-596) Sharecropping is an idea taken from medieval times. In Medieval times a serf would rent out land from a lord, and would pay the lord using the crops he would harvest, and in return the serf's family would keep a small portion of what they originally harvested. History does not repeat itself, although there are themes and motifs that perpetuate themselves.

It is said that during the 1860's the United States went through a second industrial revolution. Some historians speculate that the rise of the industrial revolution happened because of the trillion dollars in unpaid labor provided by the generations of black folks being enslaved. Something as horrible as slavery and sharecropping actually played a big role in the rise of the

United States; which can sound scary to the reader, but there has been people profiting off of slavery in the Americans since Christopher Columbus's time.

During the reconstruction era came a new set of racist mandates known as the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws was made to establish blacks to feel inferior to its "superior" counterpart the whites, and were used in all social aspects. A few examples of the Jim Crow Laws would be: No white nurses tending to black patients in hospitals, separate waiting rooms for black and white people, forbidding restaurants to serve white and blacks in the same room unless separated by a partition. Jim Crow Laws focused on segregation, which was the complete separation between blacks and whites on all levels; including schools, hospitals, colleges etc. "White schools received millions of funding federally while black schools were pulling in thousands annually" Expressed by the author Butchart (Butchart, p33-50). The Jim Crow Laws even cheated blacks out of their right to the GI Bill. The country profited from shorting African Americans time after time.

The rise of the United States social system has come a long way. From days of slavery, to segregation, it is safe to say that the USA undergone trials and tribulations to achieve equality today. As inhumane slavery is, at the time of its peak in the United States it contributed Hundreds of billions of dollars to the United States economy. Essentially the United States flourished economically by using other methods besides slavery to keep a race down, primarily through sharecropping and the Jim Crow Laws. In Conclusion the rise of the United States has not been a smooth and peaceful event, but it has persevered through rough time periods to become the leading super power it is today.

Works Cited Butchart, Ronald E. "Black Hope, White Power: Emancipation, Reconstruction and the Legacy of Unequal Schooling in the US South, 1861-1880." Paedagogica Historica 46.1/2 (2010): 3350. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. <http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/ehost/detail?sid=1fdff4f5-0bce-444882a239074cd3109b%40sessionmgr4002&vid=8&hid=4105&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZz Y29wZT1zaXRl#db=ahl&AN=48795243>. Marler, Scott P. "Fables of the Reconstruction: Reconstruction of the Fables." Journal of the Historical Society. 4.1 (2004): 113-37. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. <http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/ehost/detail?vid=14&sid=1fdff4f5-0bce4448-82a239074cd3109b%40sessionmgr4002&hid=4105&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZ T1zaXRl#db=ahl&AN=12628264>. Ralph, Shlomowitz. "BOUND" OR "FREE"? BLACK LABOR IN COTTON AND SUGARCANE FARMING, 1865-1880." Journal of Southern History. 50.4 (1984): 569-96. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.