While I watched the film I learned for the first time about the New Orleans Massacre. A convention on the issue of black suffrage was being held at the Mechanics Institution. Ex-Confederate leaders deputized a large crowd of people who believed in upholding white supremacy in the south. Black veteran Union soldiers had planned a march to the Mechanics Institute for black suffrage. The deputized police waited for the veteran Union soldiers and began to harass them as they walked by. Tension grew until a riot broke out. Soon a gun was fired which was the beginning of the New Orleans Massacre. The riot made its way to outside the Mechanics Institute where the delegates viewed the horrific behavior. The deputized police force made their way into the Mechanics Institute. Delegates afraid for their lives jumped out of the windows attempting to flee the oncoming force, but were promptly shot upon leaving the building. Over fifty people were killed and more than 200 hundred wounded in the massacre. The event caused northern republicans to question whether the Civil War was over.
While watching the film I learned about more the in-depth characteristics of Ku Klux Klan than I previously knew. For instance, this secret society originated from the expression “swallowing the dog,” which meant taking an oath of allegiance to the Union. The second part troubled Ex-Confederates, because it forced them to denounce they ever had allegiance to the Confederacy. One night, a group of rebels, formed the Ku Klux Klan, which began wearing colored sheets and even horns to appear threatening. The objective of the Klan was to instill terror in the black population as the Klan vied to reinstall their radical regime. Some horrific events that stuck out to me included the whipping of the black women in the middle of the night and the corruption in voting when the Klan threatened black voters. The most shocking statistic I noticed was that the Ku Klux Klan murdered at least one black individual each day for the entire year of 1868. Although the actual Civil War had ended, the atrocities afterwards remained just as, if not, more devastating.
In the reading n the text book, and in my research for the wiki, I found that Tennessee was the first southern state to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. I did not know, however, to what extents the governor went to procure the votes necessary. Learning how radical Brownlowe was, completed the image for his control. When the Democrats reused to ratify the Amendment and left the assembly, the governor took his firing squad to arrest them. He threatened to fire upon them if they did not return to the assembly. He fired a shot over their heads, and the frightened Democrats returned to the meeting.This time, however they were not allowed to vote. They way Browlowe took politics into his own hands with the use of military was something i found shocking.
One part towards the end of the film that I found particularly striking was the part about D.P. Upham. D.P. Upham was what southerners called a carpetbagger. He was a northerner who moved south , and took advantage of the economic stife to make money. He owned a cotton plantation in Arkansas, and was a Radical Republican. Through his activeness in politics and the community, he became a leading Radical Republican in Arkansas, and pushed to radify the fourteenth amendment. One distinguishing feature of Upham was he was a vigilant force against the Ku Klux Klan. He also drew attention from the Klan, since he was such a prominant Radical Republican. Once, he was ambushed by KKK insurgents; from then on, it was war. The state of Arkansas, in hopes to defeat the white supremicist group, divided the state into four sections, and Upham was appointed commander of the upper left quarter's efforts to subdue the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan tried to pillage his plantation, but where stopped in the act, and Upham killed four men suspect of being members of the Klan. As a response, the Klan members tryed to destroy and set afire Upham's plantation, but Upham was equipt with militia members, and the trained and organized militia won. Historians believe that Upham had such success in defeating the KKK becuase he was not afraid of them, and he "fought them at their own game". D.P. Upham helped to make the Anti-Klan movement in Arkansas a success, finally standing up to the violent group. I thought it was interesting how motivated to wipe out the KKK Upham was, even though he did not seem especially pro black rights. The way Upham stood his ground against the Klan, and refused to be intimidated was a characteristic I found honorable.
When I watched the film I learned about the opposition that the KKK faced. Initially I was unaware that anyone dared oppose the KKK in the south. However, the film showed me that there was indeed resistance especially in Arkansas. The story of D.P. Upham was quite interesting to me and I found him rather admirable for the time in spite of some rather brutal methods that he took in combating the KKK. His origin in Massachusetts and his despised carpet bagging nature also made him an interesting story to follow. I also learned about how the KKK was sparked into being by the harsh anti-Confederate approach of William “Bloody Bill” Brownlow, the governor of Tennessee. While his approach embodied the desires of the federal government in some cases it was evident that his actions were over the top for the situation. And it was these overreactions that influenced the spawning of one of the most notorious racial supremacy group that the United States has ever seen. The movie also showed me the resilience of radical organizations as even with its suppression the KKK has sprung back multiple times.
Before I watched the film, I was aware that the KKK was powerful in the South. I was, however, entirely unaware as to how powerful they were. I had always believed that they were small groups that worked terror in small amounts, while the movie said that they would form dens of many hundreds. I also learned that they had attempted to form a massive paramilitary group from each of the many individual dens when they met in Nashville, TN. That they had enough power to send hundreds of members after the town of D.P. Upham was a testament to the size of the group. Furthermore, their threat caused Arkansas to be placed under Martial Law; one group was able to render the civilian government ineffective at maintaining peace and general welfare while the KKK was in power. Their widespread terror prevented many freedman from going to vote, causing Democrats to take control of much of the South.
Before watching "Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War", I knew nothing about the Ku Klux Klan besides the brief mention of it in the textbook and that they wore white sheets with eye holes cut out to see through. From the video I learned the origin and actions of the KKK. The Klan started during the summer of 1868, after the official end of the Civil War. Six Confederate veterans returned home to the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. Like all returning rebel soldiers, the six were forced to "swallow the dog", the term meaning to say the oath of allegiance to the US. However, the second line of the oath was particularly offensive, as they were forced to renounce allegiance to the Confederate state. Upset by this, the mean later got together and conceived the idea for the Klan. It originated as a fraternal organization, but quickly became active as a paramilitary form of opposition to what was going on politically in Tennessee. The original dress code was different than is was in more recent years; they wore hoods made of any available material, some even had horns attached. They Klan went on nighttime rides that scared the local Blacks and exploited their fear by using the rides as a tool of terror. Soon the night rides became violent, beating or killing Blacks and members of the Radical Party.
This video taught me the distinct differences between Lincoln and Jackson. Lincoln chose Jackson as his vice president regardless of the fact that he was a Southern democrat. Jackson was part of the Union and also was anti slavery. Lincoln most likely chose Jackson to get more moderate democratic votes. However, when Lincoln was assassinated, Jackson was named the next President. Unlike Lincoln, Jackson believed that Whites were better than Blacks. The video made the point that Jackson disliked wealthy plantation owners who took advantage of free labor. Therefore, Jackson was an advocate of abolishing slavery, but not of Black rights. Jackson also allowed the Confederates to rejoin the Union without any punishments. Lincoln may have been lenient with his 10% plan, but Jackson made it even easier to rejoin the union. It almost seems like Jackson favored the South more once he became president. Surely Lincoln would have taken more action to protect the newly freed slaves from persecution and violence that plagued the southern states.
After watching Aftershock, i learned that the Klu Klux Klan started with just 6, disgruntled, ex confederate army members who started as a small group riding in the night. I did not realize that there was such a terror among even the local police that they would not even step in to stop it. I was also unaware that at one point, the Klu Klux Klan was shut down by its leader, a hundred years before it ceased to exist. I was surprised to learn that the president and northern states, did not step in and end the violence between the Klan and the Radicals before it became so ugly. It was astounding to me after the union was just put back in place that so many states including Arkansas, which divided itself into four sections in order to control the Klan, were able to wreak havoc however they wanted. The states were able to do whatever, however they wanted, even if it meant violence and “an eye for an eye” which Upham lived by. Even after the Klan was put to rest once, it came about several times again after reconstruction, proving the government did not do enough to keep control over the white supremacy
I realized that it was a strategical move by Lincoln to choose Johnson as his running mate. Johnson was anti-slavery, which fit Lincoln's message-- but he was not a believer in racial equality, which was appealing to conservatives. I learned that Johnson was a white supremacist and that black people were not the only targets in the south during reconstruction; white republicans were also being killed. I thought the film showed how desperate white southerns were for slaves. Running their farms through slave labor was all they knew, and they were doing everything to hang on to that. I also didn't know that the black codes were so ambiguous in that sense that they could be formed to keep black people from buying liquor to trading on their own. The black codes were unfair and violent.
I learned that the period of reconstruction was a very violent time for the slaves and that after lincolns assaination the frredom process back tracked for blacks. In this period many blacks were either killed or starved to death. America had three million frre black without money or land because people wouldnt let them own land or would only hire them to be slaves. After lincolns assasination Johnson seemed to switch sides and really didnt want blacks to be equal and free. The government wasnt trying to enforce laws and did not try hard enough to help blacks truely gain freedom. actually many did the opposite. men of power from the south planned attacks on blacks and there were many situations of out rage and rbellion in the south. The New Orleans massacre killed or wounded hundreds of blacks and veterain soldiers in a march to try to gain there right to vote. Some states actually legalized the beating of blacks for whatever reason.
Both Nathan and Connor I believe you both brought up a very good point that I inferred a little in my last post that the US bit off a lot more than they could chew in trying to remodel the whole country physically, socially and economically at once. If they couldn’t fix all three of the components of Reconstruction then they shouldn’t have done it at all. My only question is, if they had put in more strict time-tables as well as acts would the reconstruction have been more successful? Although that’s a question we may never be able to answer, look at the case of D.P. Upham. The KKK was running ramped throughout Arkansas and digressing the south away from ratifying the 14th amendment. While the federal government had implemented some laws in order to control Arkansas better by dividing it up into four different sections, there wasn’t a very strong resistance against the KKK. Upham refused to take them sitting down, however, and met “violence with violence” which seemed to be the only way to contain them at the time. He had a small group of militia followers, much smaller than that of the some 400 KKK members in the upper east corner of Arkansas, yet he was still able to defeat the KKK and bring them to extinction for the rest of his term. If the U.S. government had met the south with the same mentality as D.P. Upham, although violent, would the assertiveness caused the south to be forced to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments further? Neither congress nor the president who were both vying for the spot of power had much effect on the south causing there to be a division in equality as well as a sense of north vs. south. Could there have been more room for a bigger push by the north upon the south to ratify the amendments and regain a sense of nationalism?
While I watched the film I learned for the first time about the New Orleans Massacre. A convention on the issue of black suffrage was being held at the Mechanics Institution. Ex-Confederate leaders deputized a large crowd of people who believed in upholding white supremacy in the south. Black veteran Union soldiers had planned a march to the Mechanics Institute for black suffrage. The deputized police waited for the veteran Union soldiers and began to harass them as they walked by. Tension grew until a riot broke out. Soon a gun was fired which was the beginning of the New Orleans Massacre. The riot made its way to outside the Mechanics Institute where the delegates viewed the horrific behavior. The deputized police force made their way into the Mechanics Institute. Delegates afraid for their lives jumped out of the windows attempting to flee the oncoming force, but were promptly shot upon leaving the building. Over fifty people were killed and more than 200 hundred wounded in the massacre. The event caused northern republicans to question whether the Civil War was over.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching the film I learned about more the in-depth characteristics of Ku Klux Klan than I previously knew. For instance, this secret society originated from the expression “swallowing the dog,” which meant taking an oath of allegiance to the Union. The second part troubled Ex-Confederates, because it forced them to denounce they ever had allegiance to the Confederacy. One night, a group of rebels, formed the Ku Klux Klan, which began wearing colored sheets and even horns to appear threatening. The objective of the Klan was to instill terror in the black population as the Klan vied to reinstall their radical regime. Some horrific events that stuck out to me included the whipping of the black women in the middle of the night and the corruption in voting when the Klan threatened black voters. The most shocking statistic I noticed was that the Ku Klux Klan murdered at least one black individual each day for the entire year of 1868. Although the actual Civil War had ended, the atrocities afterwards remained just as, if not, more devastating.
ReplyDeleteIn the reading n the text book, and in my research for the wiki, I found that Tennessee was the first southern state to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. I did not know, however, to what extents the governor went to procure the votes necessary. Learning how radical Brownlowe was, completed the image for his control. When the Democrats reused to ratify the Amendment and left the assembly, the governor took his firing squad to arrest them. He threatened to fire upon them if they did not return to the assembly. He fired a shot over their heads, and the frightened Democrats returned to the meeting.This time, however they were not allowed to vote. They way Browlowe took politics into his own hands with the use of military was something i found shocking.
ReplyDeleteOne part towards the end of the film that I found particularly striking was the part about D.P. Upham. D.P. Upham was what southerners called a carpetbagger. He was a northerner who moved south , and took advantage of the economic stife to make money. He owned a cotton plantation in Arkansas, and was a Radical Republican. Through his activeness in politics and the community, he became a leading Radical Republican in Arkansas, and pushed to radify the fourteenth amendment. One distinguishing feature of Upham was he was a vigilant force against the Ku Klux Klan. He also drew attention from the Klan, since he was such a prominant Radical Republican. Once, he was ambushed by KKK insurgents; from then on, it was war. The state of Arkansas, in hopes to defeat the white supremicist group, divided the state into four sections, and Upham was appointed commander of the upper left quarter's efforts to subdue the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan tried to pillage his plantation, but where stopped in the act, and Upham killed four men suspect of being members of the Klan. As a response, the Klan members tryed to destroy and set afire Upham's plantation, but Upham was equipt with militia members, and the trained and organized militia won. Historians believe that Upham had such success in defeating the KKK becuase he was not afraid of them, and he "fought them at their own game". D.P. Upham helped to make the Anti-Klan movement in Arkansas a success, finally standing up to the violent group. I thought it was interesting how motivated to wipe out the KKK Upham was, even though he did not seem especially pro black rights. The way Upham stood his ground against the Klan, and refused to be intimidated was a characteristic I found honorable.
ReplyDeleteWhen I watched the film I learned about the opposition that the KKK faced. Initially I was unaware that anyone dared oppose the KKK in the south. However, the film showed me that there was indeed resistance especially in Arkansas. The story of D.P. Upham was quite interesting to me and I found him rather admirable for the time in spite of some rather brutal methods that he took in combating the KKK. His origin in Massachusetts and his despised carpet bagging nature also made him an interesting story to follow. I also learned about how the KKK was sparked into being by the harsh anti-Confederate approach of William “Bloody Bill” Brownlow, the governor of Tennessee. While his approach embodied the desires of the federal government in some cases it was evident that his actions were over the top for the situation. And it was these overreactions that influenced the spawning of one of the most notorious racial supremacy group that the United States has ever seen. The movie also showed me the resilience of radical organizations as even with its suppression the KKK has sprung back multiple times.
ReplyDeleteBefore I watched the film, I was aware that the KKK was powerful in the South. I was, however, entirely unaware as to how powerful they were. I had always believed that they were small groups that worked terror in small amounts, while the movie said that they would form dens of many hundreds. I also learned that they had attempted to form a massive paramilitary group from each of the many individual dens when they met in Nashville, TN. That they had enough power to send hundreds of members after the town of D.P. Upham was a testament to the size of the group. Furthermore, their threat caused Arkansas to be placed under Martial Law; one group was able to render the civilian government ineffective at maintaining peace and general welfare while the KKK was in power. Their widespread terror prevented many freedman from going to vote, causing Democrats to take control of much of the South.
ReplyDeleteBefore watching "Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War", I knew nothing about the Ku Klux Klan besides the brief mention of it in the textbook and that they wore white sheets with eye holes cut out to see through. From the video I learned the origin and actions of the KKK. The Klan started during the summer of 1868, after the official end of the Civil War. Six Confederate veterans returned home to the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. Like all returning rebel soldiers, the six were forced to "swallow the dog", the term meaning to say the oath of allegiance to the US. However, the second line of the oath was particularly offensive, as they were forced to renounce allegiance to the Confederate state. Upset by this, the mean later got together and conceived the idea for the Klan. It originated as a fraternal organization, but quickly became active as a paramilitary form of opposition to what was going on politically in Tennessee. The original dress code was different than is was in more recent years; they wore hoods made of any available material, some even had horns attached. They Klan went on nighttime rides that scared the local Blacks and exploited their fear by using the rides as a tool of terror. Soon the night rides became violent, beating or killing Blacks and members of the Radical Party.
ReplyDeleteThis video taught me the distinct differences between Lincoln and Jackson. Lincoln chose Jackson as his vice president regardless of the fact that he was a Southern democrat. Jackson was part of the Union and also was anti slavery. Lincoln most likely chose Jackson to get more moderate democratic votes. However, when Lincoln was assassinated, Jackson was named the next President. Unlike Lincoln, Jackson believed that Whites were better than Blacks. The video made the point that Jackson disliked wealthy plantation owners who took advantage of free labor. Therefore, Jackson was an advocate of abolishing slavery, but not of Black rights. Jackson also allowed the Confederates to rejoin the Union without any punishments. Lincoln may have been lenient with his 10% plan, but Jackson made it even easier to rejoin the union. It almost seems like Jackson favored the South more once he became president. Surely Lincoln would have taken more action to protect the newly freed slaves from persecution and violence that plagued the southern states.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching Aftershock, i learned that the Klu Klux Klan started with just 6, disgruntled, ex confederate army members who started as a small group riding in the night. I did not realize that there was such a terror among even the local police that they would not even step in to stop it. I was also unaware that at one point, the Klu Klux Klan was shut down by its leader, a hundred years before it ceased to exist. I was surprised to learn that the president and northern states, did not step in and end the violence between the Klan and the Radicals before it became so ugly. It was astounding to me after the union was just put back in place that so many states including Arkansas, which divided itself into four sections in order to control the Klan, were able to wreak havoc however they wanted. The states were able to do whatever, however they wanted, even if it meant violence and “an eye for an eye” which Upham lived by. Even after the Klan was put to rest once, it came about several times again after reconstruction, proving the government did not do enough to keep control over the white supremacy
ReplyDeleteI realized that it was a strategical move by Lincoln to choose Johnson as his running mate. Johnson was anti-slavery, which fit Lincoln's message-- but he was not a believer in racial equality, which was appealing to conservatives. I learned that Johnson was a white supremacist and that black people were not the only targets in the south during reconstruction; white republicans were also being killed. I thought the film showed how desperate white southerns were for slaves. Running their farms through slave labor was all they knew, and they were doing everything to hang on to that. I also didn't know that the black codes were so ambiguous in that sense that they could be formed to keep black people from buying liquor to trading on their own. The black codes were unfair and violent.
ReplyDeleteI learned that the period of reconstruction was a very violent time for the slaves and that after lincolns assaination the frredom process back tracked for blacks. In this period many blacks were either killed or starved to death. America had three million frre black without money or land because people wouldnt let them own land or would only hire them to be slaves. After lincolns assasination Johnson seemed to switch sides and really didnt want blacks to be equal and free. The government wasnt trying to enforce laws and did not try hard enough to help blacks truely gain freedom. actually many did the opposite. men of power from the south planned attacks on blacks and there were many situations of out rage and rbellion in the south. The New Orleans massacre killed or wounded hundreds of blacks and veterain soldiers in a march to try to gain there right to vote. Some states actually legalized the beating of blacks for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteBoth Nathan and Connor I believe you both brought up a very good point that I inferred a little in my last post that the US bit off a lot more than they could chew in trying to remodel the whole country physically, socially and economically at once. If they couldn’t fix all three of the components of Reconstruction then they shouldn’t have done it at all. My only question is, if they had put in more strict time-tables as well as acts would the reconstruction have been more successful? Although that’s a question we may never be able to answer, look at the case of D.P. Upham. The KKK was running ramped throughout Arkansas and digressing the south away from ratifying the 14th amendment. While the federal government had implemented some laws in order to control Arkansas better by dividing it up into four different sections, there wasn’t a very strong resistance against the KKK. Upham refused to take them sitting down, however, and met “violence with violence” which seemed to be the only way to contain them at the time. He had a small group of militia followers, much smaller than that of the some 400 KKK members in the upper east corner of Arkansas, yet he was still able to defeat the KKK and bring them to extinction for the rest of his term. If the U.S. government had met the south with the same mentality as D.P. Upham, although violent, would the assertiveness caused the south to be forced to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments further? Neither congress nor the president who were both vying for the spot of power had much effect on the south causing there to be a division in equality as well as a sense of north vs. south. Could there have been more room for a bigger push by the north upon the south to ratify the amendments and regain a sense of nationalism?
ReplyDelete