Serenity Brockman
11/26/2023
Proffesor Knies
PUA #3
Using the Chapter 14 Primary Source Project answer these 5 questions (from the chapter):
1) How did black codes and sharecropping agreements (Sources 14.6 and 14.8) attempt to
reimpose bondage on the formerly enslaved? How did they differ from pre-Civil War slave laws?
Black codes specifically limited the rights of free blacks after emancipation. The Black codes
limited the black voters voice and discourged black voters from voting. Sharecropping put Black
former slaves in the same position they were in during slavery. Sharecropping was a system that
never allowed Black people to fully establish economic freedom and it forced them to stay under
the power of the richer white people. The Black codes and sharecropping laws differ from the pre
- civil war laws because the pre civil laws focused more on social control , for example Black
people couldn’t assemble without a white person present.
2) Why did freedpeople consider property holding a fundamental right and to what extent did
sharecropping agreements allow them to gain some economic benefits from their labor (Sources
14.7 and 14.8)?
In document 14.7 Richard Cain argues that owning property or land for a freed person brings
capital , puts people to work, and relieves the Goverment. Cain’s argument was important and
needed to be said because having land gives the freed people a sense of belonging in the
community. However by doing sharecropping Black workers were able to exhange a portion of
crop if the worked for certain white plantation owners. By doing this exchange, Black workers
were able to gain some type of economic power.
3) Contrast the image of South Carolina’s black politicians presented in Richard Cain’s speech
(Source 14.7) and Thomas Nast’s cartoon (Source 14.10). What does Nast’s cartoon suggest
about white northern attitudes toward freedpeople in the South by 1874?
