Reconstruction

Celebration of the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia by the Colored People, in Washington, April 19, 1866. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Meet black legislators, sharecroppers, and white farm owners who rebuilt the South after the Civil War.

Overview

• Reconstruction 
  Learn what happened when the Civil war ended in April of 1865.
• SCIWAY-Reconstruction and Restoration
  Learn more about how people lived in South Carolina after the Civil War.
• Major Events in Reconstruction Politics
  Read a synopsis of political events of South Carolina between 1865 and 1895.
• America's Reconstruction
  See images and read more about the events of Reconstruction throughout the South.
• The Failure of Reconstruction
  Watch this video to see photographs and learn more about the struggles of African Americans in the years after the Civil War.

Timelines

Timelines can help you think about the events in South Carolina and other southern states during Reconstruction.

• Chronology of Emancipation during the Civil War

In Their Own Words

• "Their Own Hotheadedness": Senator Benjamin R."Pitchfork Ben" Tillman Justifies Violence Against Southern Blacks
  In this March 23, 1900, speech before the U.S. Senate, Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina defended the actions of his white constituents who had murdered several black citizens of his home state.
• Letter from William Stone to Governor Chamberlain regarding the Hamburg Massacre, July 1876
  This letter describes the Hamburg Massacre, a violent incident near North Augusta between a black militia and a group of white insurgents known as the "Red Shirts."
• Narrative account of an encounter with the KKK (in North Carolina)
  Read an eyewitness account of a lynching in North Carolina by Ku Klux Klan members.
• Throwing Off the Yoke of Carpetbag Government
  The views in this interview from the 1930s praise the "Red Shirt" movement and end of Reconstruction.

People

• Robert Brown Elliott
  Robert Elliott was an African American U.S. Representative from 1871-1874.
• Wade Hampton III
  Wade Hampton was the governor of South Carolina from 1877-1879 and a U.S. Senator. He was the first Democrat elected in South Carolina since the end of the Civil War, and his election in part signified the end of Reconstruction.
• Joseph Hayne Rainey
  Joseph Rainey was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Benjamin R. Tillman
  Ben Tillman was the governor of South Carolina from 1890-194 who founded what is now Clemson University, regulated the railroads, and helped write a constitution designed to disenfranchise African American citizens with Jim Crow laws.
• Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright
  Justice Wright was the first African American to practice law in South Carolina.

Government

• Freedmen's Bureau Report of Operations in South Carolina - Oct. 23, 1865
  The Freedmen's Bureau was a federal agency in the southern states to help former slaves, including providing emergency food and housing and helping the freedmen adjust to their conditions of freedom.
• Black Codes of South Carolina, December 1865
  The Constitution of 1865 included a section that regulated and restricted the lives of African Americans. The federal government rejected this constitution and a new one was written with equal treatment to all races.
• Constitution of the State of South Carolina, 1868
  The Constitution of 1868 had many democratic principles such as providing for public schools, abolishing debtors' prison, and grated some rights to women.
• Composite Photograph of Delegates to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention, 1895
  There were only a few African American representatives to the convention that created the Constitution of 1895.
• Black Voting Rights: Creating the 15th Amendment
  Explore illustrations and cartoons from the Harper Weekly magazine that focus on the 15h Amendment that prohibits governments from using a citizen's race, color, or previous status as a slave as a voting qualification.

Culture

• 40 Acres and a Mule
  Learn about General Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15.
• The Ku Klux Klan
  Learn about the beginnings and history of the extremist organization that was created in 1865 and attempted to restore white supremacy by threats and violence.
• Pirates, Plankton, & Pelicans
  Explore a replica of a schooner that was originally built by the Samuel J. Pregnall & Bros. Shipyard Shipyard in Charleston in 1879.
• Woodrow Wilson Family Home
  Take a virtual tour of the Columbia home built in 1872 that was home to a teenage Woodrow Wilson, who would later become the 28th president of the United States.
• Mt. Carmel AME Zion Church Campmeetings
  Religious campmeetings have been held at this historic site since the late 1860s.