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Reconstruction

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Reconstruction= Rebuilding the nation

After the Civil War, our country needed to be rebuilt, and the southern states needed to rejoin the union.

Congress passed laws designed to help the country rebuild

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Problems:

-Virginia’s Economy was in ruins

-Money had no value

Confederate money doesn’t work any more

War is Expensive!!!

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Problems:

-Banks were closed

-Railroads, Bridges, Plantations, and Crops were destroyed

-Businesses needed to be rebuilt

Remember:

No Crops=

No Money

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After the Civil War, slaves were free! (Yay!!) But now what?...

Now that Slaves are free, they need:

Houses Education Clothing Food Jobs

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Solution:

The Freedmen’s Bureau was a federal government agency that provided food, schools, and medical care for freed African Americans and others in Virginia.

Freedmen’s Bureau=

Agency for FREE MEN

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Solution: Sharecropping

Sharecropping was a system common in Virginia after the war in which freedmen and poor white farmers rented land from landowners by promising to pay the owners with a share of the crops.