The Black Codes Of African Americans During The Reconstruction Era

A War After the Civil War, a war between the north side and the south side of the United States, ended, the two sides reunited back into a whole and abolished slavery altogether. Since most of the war was fought on The South, the sides had to rebuild back farms, towns, and cities of the south territory, which is now known as the Reconstruction era. During the Reconstruction era, from 1865-1877, President Andrew Johnson implemented many laws and policies between the African Americans and the whites, like the Black Codes that limited the former slaves, or the freedpeople, and the sharecropping contract that was like a compromise. The South claimed that African Americans have freedom and that they are freed people. Although African Americans had …show more content…
The Black Codes of Mississippi commanded that African Americans couldn’t “keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition,” (Gienapp 108). This states that no freed people could own or have any weapons, but white people can. African Americans are being controlled and their freedom is less and more different from the whites. Since there were a lot of hatred towards the freed people and they weren’t treated as humans when they were slaves, whites can attack at any time and the freedpeople would be defenseless. The white southerners were violent and viewed the freed people as criminals, leading into many fights and attacks. Additionally, another law from the Mississippi Black Codes claimed that anyone can ”arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer...who shall have quit the service,” (Gienapp 325). This presents that if any freedmen are caught quitting their jobs without any good reasons, then they can be forced back into labor. The freed people couldn’t even have freedom of having a job or not and were forced into work they didn’t want to do. The freedpeople were controlled and had no privilege or