The reconstruction era (1865-1877) comprehends the period that follows the defeat of the Southern Confederates states be the Northern Union in the American Civil War. This war destroyed the southern economy and most of its landscape, costing the life if 620,000 Americans. For the first time, slavery was abolished in the entire extension of the American soil. This era represents a turbulent social, political and economic period in US history.
This period was particularly bad for African Americans, who faced liberty for the first time but were still under the impracticality of the American law. Racial tensions were rampant in the south, making even more difficult to develop any system to relocate former slaves in the economy. They had two wage paid jobs tenancy arrangements under rental contracts and sharecropping. tenants paid landowners for use of the land, including debt payments, while sharecroppers received their share, fewer debt payments, from landowners.
