The Importance Of Andrew Johnson's Life After The Civil War

When President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his vice president Andrew Johnson became president. He was only around for a month and was elected. Andrew Johnson was not the person you would expect him to be. Johnson was from the south of Tennessee, where he was a democratic. He did not come from a wealthy family, he grew up very poor. Johnson did not support succession and was a very hot headed person. In the summer of 1865 leading into the year of 1866 was a big deal for some, especially for the freedmen of Edisto, Island. Andrew Johnson was a well needed person for the freedmen who wanted their own land, he had to give them the right to it. There are two very important documents that talks about the freedmen, their freedom, and their rights. The two documents are From Petition of Committee in Behalf of Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865) and From A Sharecropping Contract (1866), that was written by Thomas J. Ross. How is the importance of land ownership reflected in the documents? Does the contract reflect the newfound freedom of the former slaves? Has their life changed dramatically with freedom? After the civil war, reconstruction in the south began. Freed slaves were granted their freedom and was also promised land of their own. The importance of land ownership …show more content…
They never really had any freedom. Once a little freedom was given to them, it was taken away. The former slaves believed that owning land was a key to freedom. Since they really didn’t have any land of their own, that basically meant that they did not have any freedom. They were not allowed to any right of owning their own land. When they had land, Johnson took it away and they were forced to work on someone else’s land. Although the former slaves did not have any land ownership, they found a way to improve their lives to make it better. When the government took away their land, it forced them sharecropping in an effort to better