labor
While African Americans could no longer be slaves, they often found themselves working in positions for minimal wages no better than the work they were forced to endure in bondage.
After the Civil War, many freedmen believed that the federal government had promised "forty acres and a mule" for each former slave in the South - land taken from plantation owners in order for former slaves to set up their own farms. However, after President Lincoln's assassination, President Johnson intended for the Confederate states to reenter the Union as smoothly as possible and therefore issued a proclamation of pardon and amnesty to citizens in the South who would take an oath of allegiance. As a result, lands confiscated during the war were returned to white landowners and freedmen who had been expecting their share of land in order to start their own farms once again had their land taken away from them. The Bureau's failure to secure land for the freedmen deprived former slaves of their chance at economic independence and undermined their faith in the U.S. government.
With no land to start their own farms, the majority of freedmen were forced to live under the system of sharecropping, a system that strongly resembled the plantation system which had existed years before the war. While Southern landowners owned large plantations, they no longer had the labor to work it nor the money to hire laborers. For the freedmen, it was the opposite. While they were willing to work, without land they were unable to work for themselves. The sharecropping system relied on poor farmers who did not own their own plots of land to work the land belonging to a landowner. As payment, the farmer would receive a share of the harvest. However, if the harvest was unsuccessful, it could lead to farmers being in debt to the landowners who paid for the housing, seeds, and farming equipment, therefore dooming many farmers to a life of poverty. Despite the end of slavery, African Americans often found themselves working for their former slaves masters as sharecroppers for minimal wages.
For the few slaves who were educated they might be able to find jobs in other areas of work, however, for most who were illiterate, all they knew was farm work and the idea of working for wages was still a foreign concept.
For the few slaves who were educated they might be able to find jobs in other areas of work, however, for most who were illiterate, all they knew was farm work and the idea of working for wages was still a foreign concept.