A Look at Virginians During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (lesson 2)

A Look at Virginians During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (lesson 2)

In this lesson students will examine how the actions of people in government during Reconstruction, 1865-77, affected the choices that individuals made. Students will consider the life of African Americans in Virginia during this period, noting how the national government’s actions and the Virginia government’s actions impacted the education of African Americans in Virginia. This lesson focuses on the opportunities that Reconstruction opened up for African Americans, providing students the opportunity to learn about William Jasper and his family. It works well after students have learned about slavery and the Civil War in Virginia, and before students study the effects of segregation and Jim Crow on life in Virginia – a time during which many of these opportunities were taken away.

Students will
1. Use secondary sources to identify some of the problems Virginians faced during the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War

2. Recognize how the national government supported African Americans during Reconstruction

3. Use primary sources including a voter registry and a marriage license to appreciate how African Americans in Virginia exercised their newly won rights

4. Identify and interpret primary source documents

5. Determine cause and effect relationships

6. Sequence events in Virginia history

7. Interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives.

grades 4, 6, and 11

Grade 4: Virginia Studies

Skills VS.1 The student will develop skills for historical and geographical analysis including the ability to
a) identify and interpret artifacts and primary and secondary source documents to understand events in history
b) determine cause and effect relationships
f) sequence events in Virginia history
g) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives

Content VS.8 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the reconstruction of
Virginia following the Civil Was by
a) identifying the effects of Reconstruction on life in Virginia.

Grade 6: United States History I – to 1877

USI.1 The student will develop skills for historical and geographical analysis, including the ability to: (a) identify and interpret primary and secondary source documents to increase understanding of events and life in United States history to 1877.

USI.10 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the effects of Reconstruction on American life by: (a) identifying the provisions of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and their impact on the expansion of freedom in America; (b) describing the impact of Reconstruction policies on the South.

Grade 11: Virginia and United States History

VUS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis, including the ability to: (a) identify, analyze, and interpret primary and secondary source documents, records, and data, including artifacts, diaries, letters, photographs, journals, newspapers, historical accounts, and art to increase understanding of events and life in the United States.

VUS.7 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era and its importance as a major turning point in American history by (c) examining the political, economic, and social impact of the war and Reconstruction, including the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Estimated time is 2 class periods, but feel free to adapt this lesson to your needs.

According to Christopher Clark and Nancy Hewitt, “Both failures and successes were inherent in the task of rebuilding the nation following the Civil War: vigilante violence, often fatal conflict over the right of African American men to vote, courageous African American insistence on self-determination and participation in the political process, and federal intervention in the South to help assure freedpeople’s rights. The Union victory in 1865 had settled two major debates but left everything else in doubt. The United States of America was preserved; slavery was dead, and African Americans were now free. But who would hold and exercise economic and political power in the postwar South? What kind of labor system would replace slavery? Who would lead the South politically? What would freedom mean for the four million former slaves? Answers to these questions were widely contested and would emerge only after two decades of intense political and social struggle, a struggle that contemporaries hopefully called Reconstruction.
Racial conflicts in the former Confederacy continued to disrupt efforts at reunification, and a protracted financial crisis dashed hopes for a quick economic recovery. In response, northern political and business leaders focused their efforts on revitalizing the economy through reconciliation between North and South rather than protecting racial advancement in either region. Thus… the old planter aristocracy – under the protection of a revived Democratic Party – returned to power, controlling a nonslave but still exploitative system of agricultural labor.
The failure of Reconstruction to transform southern race relations shaped the nation as a whole. Still, it was freedpeople who paid the highest price. Outgunned, both figuratively and literally, they were left with few alternatives. Yet they did not give up. Those who remained in the South established a dense network of autonomous community-based institutions, including black schools, churches, and businesses, to keep their democratic hopes alive within an oppressive and racist system.”
(From Clark, Christopher and Nancy A. Hewitt. Who Built America, Volume I, pages 589-590.)

Virginia, 1865-1870
The 1869 Virginia Constitution, unlike previous state charters, mandated public education. Virginia’s position on public education – let alone its position on educating blacks – had been tenuous at best. The state had long resisted a system of free schools, despite the efforts of some of its more famous citizens. Thomas Jefferson’s unsuccessful campaign for free schools had yielded little more than a literary fund for indigent children. All of that changed when Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867 demanding that southern states ratify new constitutions guaranteeing black suffrage. Once these constitutions met with congressional approval and after the state approved the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress promised re-admittance into the Union.
Responding to the Reconstruction Act, Virginians registered voters and called an election to decide if the state would call a convention to revise the state’s constitution. In 1867 226 Fairfax County blacks registered to vote – voting unanimously in favor of a constitutional convention. In 1869, they returned to the polls and voted for adoption of the Constitution.
At the 1867-1868 Constitutional Convention, education proved to be one of the most hotly debated topics, (the state’s war debt was the other top issue). Though delegates, largely consisted of northern immigrants and freedmen easily approved a public school system, they were strongly divided over the question of integration. Many northern immigrants viewed public schools as the foundation of a democratic society and a key to reconstruction of the South. The question broke along racial lines. Black members introduced resolutions ensuring equal access to education “without distinction of color.” White delegates never took these suggestions seriously. Even radicals who supported desegregation voted against such resolutions. Mindful of widespread sentiment against mixed schools, they did not want to risk ratification. In the end, while most assumed public schools would be segregated, no language could be agreed upon and the question was not resolved until the legislature revisited the issue in 1870.
While blacks lost their campaign for mixed schools, they still passed a milestone in gaining access to public education. However, as a result of poor political and financial support, Virginia’s first public schools for both blacks and whites were grossly inadequate. Many did not have heat or toilets, schools were small and scattered; also the average term was less than the five months mandated by the Constitution, and attendance, which was not required was sparse. Despite these conditions – and those for black children were considerably worse than those for whites – still there were now public schools in which both black and white children learned.”

The William Jasper family, 1808-1870 [Talking Points]

• William Jasper, an African American, was probably born in 1808 not far from George Washington’s plantation in Mount Vernon. He was born a slave on the plantation of William Hayward Foote’s Hayfield plantation. Foote was one of the richest men in Fairfax County—when he died he owned 50 slaves.

• Jasper worked on a plantation that grew wheat and corn, and raised horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. Slaves at Hayfield, including Jasper, are likely to have had skills as farmers, blacksmiths and carpenters.

• Jasper and his family were not sold south to booming cotton and sugar plantations, as were many other slaves.

• According to his will, Foote decided to free his slaves on or soon after his death in 1846. At this time Jasper, in his thirties, was valued by appraisers to be worth $350. Foote’s will also freed Jasper’s wife Sara, in her mid-twenties, and their two daughters who were six and four. They were actually freed in the early 1850’s.

• It is important to note that the Jaspers were free blacks in Virginia before the Civil War. But even as free blacks they faced numerous obstacles. They could not: own a gun, obtain an education, vote, conduct business freely, worship in religious services unless supervised by whites. Also they might be captured by slave traders and sold back into slavery.

• The Jaspers wanted to stay in Virginia near friends and family, so in 1853 and 1858 they chose to register as free blacks in Fairfax County to prove that they were free. This meant they could travel and gain employment.

• In 1860 William Jasper purchased 13 acres of land near the Hayfield Plantation. It is likely that he put together the $200 to pay a white farmer and slave owner for the land from his work as a farmer.

• The Jaspers probably did not stay on their newly bought land during the Civil War -- and it is also likely that what they had on this land, including buildings, animals and crops, was lost during the war.

Day 1
1. Hook: Begin by asking students what they remember about slavery – specifically about how slavery impacted the lives of those who were slaves. Write students’ recollections on a web on the board or a flip chart. Then ask students what they know about free blacks before the Civil War: specifically what rights did and didn’t they have? [If this lesson follows directly after the lesson on Slavery and Free Negroes, 1800-1865, best to begin by asking students for a short recap of what they learned.]
* For HS students, teachers might start by asking students recall what they remember about Reconstruction.

2. Tell students that they will learn the story of William Jasper and his family, people who were first slaves then free blacks in Virginia, and will then get a chance to examine some documents for clues about life in Virginia after the Civil War.

3. Use the talking points above about William Jasper and his family to tell students this story. As you do, ask students how the Jasper’s experience is similar to or different from what they remember about slaves and free blacks.

4. Explain that they will be examining two primary sources to find out what rights freed people gained during Reconstruction and how these rights affected the lives of individuals.

5. Give each student a copy (and possibly have a copy on a smart board or overhead projector) of A List of Colored Voters Voting in the 3rd Magisterial District, Fairfax County, Virginia, October 22, 1867.

6. Direct students to work in pairs and follow along as you introduce the List, then have them look at the list of names. Ask students to jot down on paper what they notice and also make a note of any questions they have. These are purposely open-ended, with the goal being for students to focus and think first on their own, and then to have pairs of students discuss what they found.

7. Examples of things students might notice and question include: the date is 1867, that William Jasper’s name is listed, that colored voters are listed separately from white voters, that only men are listed, that each many has a first and last name – different from the list of slaves on the Foote will and inventory where most were identified by first names only, only names are listed – not addresses. Questions might address why some of these things occurred.

8. Reconvene the class as a whole and ask students to share what they noticed and the questions they had, and write their basic points on the board under Notice and Questions. Answer questions as you can.
* Points to clarify and emphasize include:
 That Thornton Gray, another of the founders of the Laurel Grove School (and included in the previous lesson) is also on the List.
 On the list of voters, note the total number of colored voters voting, and that they were not just registered but voted in 1867.

9. Next give each student a copy (and possibly have a copy on a smart board or overhead projector) of the 1869 Marriage License for William Jasper and Georgiana Jackson.

10. Again, direct students to work in pairs and follow along as you read the Marriage License. Ask students to jot down on paper what they notice and also make a note of any questions they have. These are purposely open-ended, with the goal being for students to focus and think first on their own, and then to have pairs of students discuss what they found.

11. Examples of things students might notice and question include: that Georgiana (Jackson) not Sarah is listed as William Jasper’s wife – explain that Sarah died and that William Jasper married again, note “Condition of Husband” and “Condition of Wife” with two options: widowed or single, and that for husband widowed is listed, while for wife single is listed, notes ages (58 and 34), no names listed for wife’s parents, there is no designation that this license for race (white or colored), husband/Jasper’s occupation is listed as farmer, and there is no place to list wife’s occupation. Why was getting married legally so important to freed people?

12. Reconvene the class as a whole and ask students to share what they noticed and the questions they had, and write their basic points on the board under Notice and Questions. Answer questions as you can.

13. Ask students:
• What rights do these two documents show that Jasper (and others) had in 1867 and 1869 that they did not have as slaves or as free blacks?
• How did free blacks get the right to marry legally and to vote (among other rights)? [Questions asked in Historical Background that you might want to use/revisit:
• Who would hold and exercise economic and political power in the postwar South? What kind of labor system would replace slavery?
• Who would lead the South politically?
• What would freedom mean for the four million former slaves?

14. The next step is to connect students’ observations and questions on the list and the marriage license to the historical context at this time. Again, use the relevant section of the Historical Background and the Three-Part Time Line to do this in whatever method makes sense to you and your class. Be sure to make two key points at this point:
• Use the three-part timeline with National, Virginia, Jasper/Walker Family events to show the inter-relatedness of what happens. – Could begin to create this three-part timeline or have the teacher put it together section by section.
• People make choices within their historical contexts.

15. Wrap up: The last question will provide an important problem-posing link to students’ study of Reconstruction: encourage students to hypothesize how these rights became legal for freed black people in Virginia, and write their hypotheses on the board or a flip chart.

Day 2
1. Before class, write the information listed in # 3 below on the board or a flip chart.

2. Hook: Begin with the word “Reconstruction”: ask students what it means and what they think needed to be reconstructed at the end of the Civil War in Virginia. What groups of people would need help and why? Problems faced by Virginians during Reconstruction include:
• Four million freed slaves needed housing, clothing, food, jobs, and an education/literacy
• Virginia’s economy was in ruins
• Confederate money had no value
• Banks were closed
• Railroads, bridges, farms and crops had been destroyed A different option for the hook might be to have the students do a “Think-Pair-Share.” Students should discuss problems and issues Virginians may have encountered during the Reconstruction era.

3. Give students a brief explanation of the Congressional actions during Reconstruction by reading and showing them the information below. Be sure to remind students that in 1863 Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had already freed slaves in areas under Confederate control. Also explain that the amendments listed below were additions to the U.S. Constitution. * This will be a brief review with high school students.
• 13th amendment – December 6, 1865 -abolished slavery in the entire United States.
• 14th amendment – July 9, 1868 - made former slaves citizens of the United States and the state in which they live, forbade the denial of equal rights
• 15th amendment – February 3, 1870- said that voting rights cannot be denied to a person because of his race, did not specifically say that African Americans have the right to vote [Older students might want to explore why this distinction is important.]
• In 1865 Congress set up the Freedmen’s Bureau (the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands), a national government agency that provided food, schools, and medical care for free slaves and others in Virginia and the rest of the South.

4. Set the stage for the role play on the 1867 Virginia Constitutional Convention by explaining that
• According to Congress, the requirements for Virginia – and all former Confederate states – to be readmitted into the union was that they had to accept Amendments 13, 14 and 15, and write a new constitution. Also Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867 demanding that southern states ratify new constitutions guaranteeing black suffrage (right to vote).
• All Virginia voters could vote on whether to have a convention to create a new state constitution – and that among these voters was William Jasper. Be sure to explain why black voters would want a new state constitution.
• The major topic at this convention was education: whether or not to have public education for all children, and whether to have black and white children attend the same schools.

5. For the role play, you can divide students into three large groups and assign them to play these groups of delegates to the 1867 Virginia Constitutional Convention OR you can divide students into smaller groups of three:
 White Radicals (including white northern emigrants and a few southerners)
 White southern/Conservatives

6. Give each student in the same group the same role description. These explain each group’s views on the topic of education, and it will be useful to go over the wording to be sure they understand: White Radicals – We believe that public school for all children is essential as the foundation of a democratic society, and it has worked this way in our northern states for years. Also, public schools are important to the reconstruction of the South. People need an education to be good citizens and productive people. But, while it might be fair to have black children attend any school, we worry that if we write this into this constitution, Virginia voters will vote against, or not ratify, the constitution. Black freedmen/Radicals – We believe that public school for all children is essential as the foundation of a democratic society. To be good citizens, all children need to learn to read and write. We also believe that black children should have equal access to all schools – that is only fair. Black children deserve the same schools as white children. Education is the gateway to all the other rights and black children should be prepared to become full American citizens. White southern/Conservatives – We are not convinced that there should be public schools for white children, whether rich or poor. We are even less sure about public education for black children and absolutely certain that black and white children should not attend the same schools. We are afraid that, since Virginians already have to pay off large war debts, adding taxes to pay for public education would be a bad idea at this time.
* HS teachers could have students research additional roles before the role play takes place. Possible additions include carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Redeemers.

7. Direct students once in their groups to have each member of the group read his or her role, then put what they read in their own words. Next ask students to discuss how they will vote on the education questions. Remind students they’ll have to vote on these questions as if they were delegates to the Convention:
• Should there be public education for all children?
• Should black and white children attend the same schools? Emphasize that they must vote based on their role.

8. Acting as facilitator, reconvene the whole class with students still in their roles and ask each group’s representative to explain their group’s position. Finally, record the votes of each person on the two education questions – and announce the winning positions.

9. Debrief: Ask students to step out of their roles – and to be themselves again and give them an opportunity to tell how their role felt to them. Tell students that the actual convention voted to have public education for both black and white children – the first time there was public education at all in Virginia. Note that, although most people at that time assumed public schools would be segregated, the 1869 Constitution did not include these words. The first Virginia superintendent of education, William H. Ruffner, developed a plan for establishing public schools in 1870 and in that plan, he instituted separate schools for blacks and whites. And, finally, point out that, since Virginians owed so much money in war debts, there was not much money left over for public schools for white students and definitely not for black students.

10. Inform students that all African American men (remind students that women did not have the vote) who voted in Fairfax County voted in favor of this Constitution. Note that African American men in Virginia had several opportunities to vote: First, they elected delegates to the Convention, then African American delegates at the Convention helped decide what would go in the Constitution. And after the Convention, African American men had another chance to vote. They, along with white male voters, voted whether of not the Constitution would be ratified. African American men voted unanimously for ratification of the Constitution of 1869.
* Information from steps 9, 10, and the chart from the convention could be given to the students.

11. Finally, ask students to compare what actually happened during Reconstruction with their hypotheses on Day 1 (when you asked them to hypothesize how these rights became legal for freed people in Virginia).
* You can use the information below as a reference with students. A chart of the information can be found with the attachments for this lesson. Constitution of 1869
1. National events: 13, 14 & 15 Amendments, Reconstruction Act 1867
2. Who could vote: Vote expanded to African American males
3. Who was at convention: Northern immigrants, freedmen, conservative white southerners and a few radical white southerners
4. Major issue(s): Education: public? Mixed?
5. Decisions made: Public education to be provided for both black and white children, but it was unlikely to be mixed or equally funded

12. Wrap up: Grade 4: Ask students to write a story that William Jasper might tell his children and grandchildren explaining what life was like for Virginians, particularly African American Virginians, during Reconstruction. Explain that students will need to include specifics from this history as an integral part of their story. It might be useful to take some time during English/Language Arts to complete this writing, since it provides students with practice in “writing effective narratives and explanations,” (Grade Four English Standard of Learning 4.7). A rubric might specify that an exemplary piece of writing would:
• Accurately and clearly discuss two or three historical specifics from Reconstruction
• Connect the lives of individuals to the actions of Congress and Virginia state government
* Demonstrate evidence that the student planned, wrote, revised and edited their narrative.

Grade 11: Assign students roles to write an editorial from a Fairfax newspaper in 1867. The students must present the views of the particular person in the article: White Southern Conservatives, White Radicals, Black Freedmen Radicals. The students should focus on the interests, needs, and fears of the person from whose view they write. Next, the teacher will select one editorial and “publish” the letter. Students will complete a second writing, a “letter to the editor,” in response to the published position. They must choose a person whose views are different from the views of the published editorial.

Books and Media

Anderson, James. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. New York: Free Press, 1974.
Buck, J.L. Blair. The Development of Public Schools in Virginia, 1607-1952. Richmond: State Board of Education, 1952.

Clark, Christopher and Nancy A. Hewitt. Who Built America, Volume I, third edition. Boston: St. Martin’s, 2008.

Foner, Eric. A Short History of Reconstruction. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

Heatwole, Cornelius J. A History of Education in Virginia. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

Wood, Linda Sargent. “The Laurel Grove School: Educating the First Generation Born into Freedom,” Unpublished essay: Nov. 27, 2006.

Websites.

America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section1/section1_intro.html
This exhibition is part of the Digital History site that contains an up-to-date U.S. history textbook; annotated primary sources on United States, Mexican American, and Native American history, and slavery; and succinct essays on the history of ethnicity and immigration, film, private life, and science and technology. The text is by Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and renowned expert on Reconstruction, and Olivia Mahoney, Director of Historical Documentation at the Chicago Historical Society.

Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/civilwar/civilwar.html
This Library of Congress exhibition contains succinct overviews of several aspects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and features primary sources, maps, and images

Primary sources

• 1869 Marriage License for William Jasper and Georgiana Jackson

• A List of Colored Voters Voting in the 3rd Magisterial District, Fairfax County, Virginia, October 22, 1867

* Photos of Williamand Georgianna Jasper

Handout: Role play parts for Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1867-68

Three Part Time Line

Optional: Create a transparency adapting the Talking Points on the William Jasper family and have an overhead projector.