Landscape of Ruin: The Southern Economy during Reconstruction

INTRO

Hey everyone. Welcome back. 

In the final months of the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman launched a devastating campaign into enemy territory. The now notoriously titled Sherman’s March to the Sea was a combination of psychological and physical warfare - a demonstration of brutal force for the residents of Georgia and a message for those living in the Confederate south that their government was wholly incompetent and unable to protect constituents from an invasion. Sherman’s march is known for its devastation - he left no bridge, railroad, or plantation unharmed - but this march also plays into our story today. 

Despite the fact that the debates over the reunification process began almost immediately after the first shots were fired, those in charge during the Civil War failed to adequately plan for one thing: what was the southern economy going to look like once the war was over? 

A society whose wealth was built on the unpaid labor of others, the southern economy after the war was in tatters. Saddled with debt and lacking any way to rebuild, leaders struggled, creating a system of poverty for generations. So this week I am diving into the southern economy during reconstruction. What struggles did political leaders face? What options did they consider? And how did their decisions lead to extreme poverty for thousands? 

Grab your cup of coffee peeps. Let’s do this. 

How does one rebuild after war? That was one of the many questions facing southern residents in the months and years following the Civil War. For decades the south depended on the unpaid labor of millions of Black Americans to till and pull their crops to ship to market. On the eve of the Civil War, cotton made up 61% of all exports from the United States. Cotton from the American South dominated the textile industry as landowners south of the Mason Dixon line reaped in major profits and, according to historians southern planters quote “enjoyed more per capita wealth than any other slave economy in the new world,” end quote. Planters generally took their profits to reinvest, in a sense, by acquiring more slaves in an effort to increase their production. But with war came change. 

In returning to the south after the war, residents found cities destroyed, their plantations burned, and railroad lines severed. Sherman’s march left no stone unturned as he ordered his men to burn everything in sight including vacant fields and bridges. What land was left had been unoccupied and unworked for several years as southern residents evacuated the area or signed up to fight on behalf of the confederacy. As historian David Blight described quote, “the south now was a landscape in ruin,” end quote. Home to a majority of the war’s campaigns, miles of land that was once abundant with cotton and tobacco fields lay baron. Yet it was this land that would feature so prominently in the debates after the war. Newly freed Black Americans would require some mechanism under which to earn a living and much of their experience revolved around the work performed on a plantation. In hindsight, it seems obvious that discussions about land redistribution should have been a major topic of any reconstruction plans, yet this was not the case. 

So what happened? Historians of the era explain that during the war all of the attention and focus was on outlawing slavery and trying to find a way to extend some political rights to newly emancipated Black men. They were trying to work through questions such as what was the federal government’s role in overseeing this extension of rights? What authority did it have, if any? And how would southern states formally rejoin the union? Mired in the debates over these critical issues, those in power failed to consider what it might take to physically rebuild the south. There is an argument that since the south was the aggressor in the war it was only appropriate for them to shoulder the costs of rebuilding. And yet, if the south was rejoining the union shouldn’t they be eligible for at least some federal help? Again from historian David Blight, quote: “Reconstruction was a massive logistical, political, constitutional, economic challenge like the country had never faced,” end quote. 

When Congress did get around to the land question, there were some who argued that the land held by the southern elite should be redistributed. As Thaddeus Stevens said quote, "These slaveowners, these rebels, have led the South into the Civil War. They're responsible for this terrible destruction and loss of life. Take away their land. Then you will really destroy the planter class, which has been the cause of so much trouble" end quote. 

Some assessing the situation believed that the southern economy’s best chance for recovery was to mirror itself after the north. The north had an agricultural component to its economy like its neighbor to the south, but it was mostly small family farms. If the south was truly going to replicate its neighbors to the north, they would need to break up the sprawling plantations into small parcels so more people could participate.  Dividing up the large plantations would also achieve the goal of permanently breaking the planter class and hopefully safeguard the country from another aristocracy. The north’s economy was also more diverse, and therefore more resilient than the south. The northern economy was built on a foundation of wage labor, farming, and industrial outputs and thus, while they were impacted by the war, they recovered much faster. But any discussion about rebuilding the economy had to account for one significant difference: almost 4 million people who would require some form of support. 

Black Americans wanted autonomy and knew that the only way to be truly free of their former enslavers was to own property and grow their own crops for market. They were also uneasy about living among their former enslavers after the war, expressing concern that racism would prove to be an ongoing issue for several years after the war. Thus, when Black leaders were asked in early 1865 what exactly they wanted for their community, the answer was simple: land. And a chance to work the land until it was profitable and could become theirs outright. 

This meeting with Black leaders eventually led to General William Sherman’s Special Field Order Number 15 which was issued in January of 1865. Better known today as the forty acres and a mule order, Sherman indicated that once three quote unquote respectable black americans identified a plot of land in a predetermined area, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations would issue a license granting the group access to the land. Sherman specified the land should be divided so quote, “each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title,” end quote.

Thousands of freedmen and women took advantage of this order, only to see their legal access to the land rescinded once President Andrew Johnson took office. As I’ve discussed in previous episodes, Johnson was a man who held deeply racist beliefs and did not think that Black Americans deserved more than the elimination of slavery. As such, Johnson went to work and in the fall of 1865, returned most of the land to its previous owners leaving freedmen and their families without a way to earn money. They received no monetary compensation for the work they’d already put into the land; no stipend or lump sum payment to help them get settled somewhere they could earn a living. Instead, many Black Americans found themselves stuck and again relying on the goodwill of their former white enslavers. 

These former owners - who knew no other system than the forced extraction of unpaid labor of black men and women - sought to recreate it. They pushed for Black Americans to work in gangs under close supervision of a white manager - basically recreating slavery in all but name. But freedmen would not consent to this and thus a compromise was born: sharecropping. In entering a sharecropping contract, landowners shared a portion of their land - usually in 20 to 50 acre plots - with a tenant who would be allowed to plant crops for their family. The farmer would take on the responsibility of clearing, planting, and harvesting the land. At harvest, the owner and tenant would share the profits of the crop yielded, thus the name sharecropping. 

Yet freedmen had zero capital and no money with which to purchase the necessary material to run a farm. They needed seed, fertilizer, wood, tools, clothes - the list was endless - but had no means with which to pay. This led to landowners extending a form of credit to their tenants - allowing farmers to buy all the goods they needed - which would then be paid back once the crop came in. This, in essence, inaugurated the cotton lien system - or the extension of credit on the premise that once the cotton crop came in, its value would wipe out any debts accumulated during its production. While contracts were rare, when they were signed, the terms were written in such a way as to indicate that both the owner and the farmer would receive payment on the future value of the crop - almost exclusively cotton. In reality, these agreements were highly favorable toward the owner and forced the farmer to work without any wages until harvest. Thus, whenever the farmer needed to procure a piece of equipment or clothing for their family, they were forced to finance their purchase on credit. Of course these agreements were anything but fair and farmers frequently faced excessively high interest rates - with some hitting as high as 70% - which made it all but impossible for the tenant to fully pay off their debts. The crop lien system wasn’t entirely profitable for land owners either, and according to historian Richard White the system would quote “burden the region for generations,” end quote. This burden was largely carried by poor whites and freedmen and women, establishing a system of poverty and economic dependence tying Black families to the south for decades. 

As scholar Julia Simon observed quote, “the reorganization of agricultural labor after the Civil War instrumentalized debt to keep a labor force bound to the land,” end quote. And if the system was not punitive enough, laws were passed that limited and sometimes outright forbade sharecroppers from selling their crops to anyone but the landowner. Therefore the landowner was the sole authority on determining the value of the crop and by extension how much debt was repaid and how much remained outstanding. And farmers had little more than the landowner’s word as to where they stood in the economic ledger. Landowners did not issue receipts, and lacking an education, Black Farmers were unable to keep their own books - not that it would have mattered seeing as the final say belonged to the owner. As you might imagine, farmers almost always came up short and were forced to carry debt with them into the next season. On the rare occasions that the tenant came out ahead and earned a little money beyond their debt, they were encouraged to spend it instead of saving it or trying to use it to invest in a better future.

Some sharecroppers tried to beat what they saw as a blatantly unfair system by holding back a portion of their crop until the owner finalized his calculations and shared the total value. The farmer would then produce his previously hidden crop only to be told that they were still in debt or if they were lucky - were now debt free but still not owed any additional payment. This pushed many farmers into focusing on increasing their output in the hope that with even more product to sell on the market, they’d finally be able to be free of debt and might be lucky enough to walk away with a little money for their families. 

And while the landowners were definitely under-valuing the crops presented by their tenants, the cotton industry had shifted. Before the Civil War, the South - and specifically a concentrated few who held title to vast amounts of land - dominated the cotton trade and thus commanded large sums of money for their exports. However after the war, these same planters saw almost the entirety of their net worth - coming mainly from the value of the human beings they owned - wiped out. This created an opening for poor white farmers who were now able to participate in the cotton industry, but there was also a new problem: global competition. Increased access to production domestically and more competition on the global market led to the value of cotton to drop.   

As cotton lost its value, some farmers sought to renegotiate their contracts - only to be met with violence, or threats of violence. Again, they had little recourse as the legal system was not on their side and the laws on the books only protected the land owners and sought to punish anyone who went into debt. Thus farmers eventually agreed to re-sign their agreement further perpetuating the cycle of poverty for generations to come. 

Despite the stacked deck, some Black Americans successfully escaped the sharecropping system and acquired their own land. As of 1870, more than 90% of Black Americans lived in the south, but just 30,000 - or 1% of the three million - owned land. Those lucky enough to live near or in southern cities were able to avoid the sharecropping system altogether, instead establishing businesses for themselves as blacksmiths, barbers, or builders. And some were lucky enough to relocate north – although this did not stop former enslavers from attempting to entice them back with promises of economic opportunity through sharecropping. 

One former enslaver, P.H. Anderson of Tennessee, sent an offer to Jourdon Anderson, one of his former slaves, to come back and work the land. Living safely in Ohio and earning a monthly wage of $25, Jourdon Anderson wrote to this former master that he would only consider coming back to Tennessee if he outlined in writing what wages he was willing to pay, and even asked for back pay totalling $11,680. Jourdon also asked that his daughters’ safety be guaranteed, indicating he would rather die than risk his daughters being quote “brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters,” end quote and asked whether there would be any schools available for his children as he intended to ensure they received the best education possible. Jourdan ended his letter with a twinge of sarcasm writing quote: “say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were trying to shoot at me,” end quote. 

Sharecropping was a compromise for both black and white southern residents. For white landowners, it gave them an opportunity to mirror the labor system that was in place prior to the Civil War so that they could continue to engage in the cotton trade. For Black Americans, it gave them a chance to exercise a small bit of autonomy, and allowed Black families to send their children to schools, when available. Yet, sharecropping also proved economically unviable and marked the start of a prolonged period of deep poverty for thousands that would last until the 1930s. The failures of sharecropping also gave rise to the convict leasing system, where men charged and convicted with petty crimes would be forced into decades of forced, unpaid labor.

In trying to determine the best way to rebuild the economy in the aftermath of the Civil War, southern leaders chose to build a system that most mirrored what they’d known for generations. Lacking infrastructure and without other means to repay debts, sharecropping became a compromise for both planters and farmers alike. Unfortunately, the system also limited innovation and blunted any attempts at shifting the southern economy, locking generations of Americans into a cycle of poverty that would extend into the twentieth century. 

Thanks, peeps. I will see you next week.

OUTRO