freedmen
Liberated from bondage
Freedmen are people who have been released from slavery.
The term appears almost exclusively in historical contexts, particularly referring to formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War: The Freedmen's Bureau helped newly emancipated people find work and housing.
A single person is a freedman (male) or freedwoman (female).
Release from legal bondage
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- servitudeCompulsory labor under masters
- enslavementForced human ownership
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
chattel · slaveholder · overseer · auction · shackles · cotton · tobacco · slave trade
Post-Civil War constitutional addition
- enfranchisementGranting citizenship rights
- suffrageRight to cast ballots
- voting rightsEntitlement to elect officials
- citizenshipStatus as state member
civil rights · poll tax · literacy test · grandfather clause · disenfranchisement · voter registration · civic participation · naturalization
Farm rent in produce
- carpetbaggersOutsiders exploiting local turmoil
- scalawagsPlayful troublemakers
- Radical RepublicansStrict Reconstruction-era congressional bloc
- land redistributionReassigning property among populations
forty acres · tenant farming · labor contracts · plantation economy · vagrancy laws · military occupation · redemption · home rule
White supremacist hate organization
- night ridersViolent nocturnal vigilante groups
- lynchingExtrajudicial killing by mob
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- segregationForced separation by group
white supremacy · terrorism · intimidation · violence · convict leasing · chain gang · sundown towns · race riots
Cooperative community support
- benevolent societiesMutual assistance organizations
- family reunificationRejoining separated relatives
- land ownershipPossessing property rights
- self-sufficiencyIndependence from outside aid
literacy · education · congregation · uplift · self-determination · autonomy · community building · homesteading
emancipation
Release from legal bondage
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- servitudeCompulsory labor under masters
- enslavementForced human ownership
plantation · chattel · slaveholder · overseer · auction · shackles · cotton · tobacco · slave trade · field hand
14th Amendment
Post-Civil War constitutional addition
- enfranchisementGranting citizenship rights
- suffrageRight to cast ballots
- voting rightsEntitlement to elect officials
citizenship · civil rights · poll tax · literacy test · grandfather clause · disenfranchisement · voter registration · civic participation · naturalization · equal protection
sharecropping
Farm rent in produce
- carpetbaggersOutsiders exploiting local turmoil
- scalawagsPlayful troublemakers
- Radical RepublicansStrict Reconstruction-era congressional bloc
land redistribution · forty acres · tenant farming · labor contracts · plantation economy · vagrancy laws · military occupation · redemption · home rule
Ku Klux Klan
White supremacist hate organization
- night ridersViolent nocturnal vigilante groups
- lynchingExtrajudicial killing by mob
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
segregation · white supremacy · terrorism · intimidation · violence · convict leasing · chain gang · sundown towns · race riots · massacres
mutual aid
Cooperative community support
- benevolent societiesMutual assistance organizations
- family reunificationRejoining separated relatives
- land ownershipPossessing property rights
self-sufficiency · literacy · education · congregation · uplift · self-determination · autonomy · community building · homesteading · skilled trades
- Black HistoryMartin Luther King Jr., MLK, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass
- Ancient RomansJulius Caesar, patricians, consuls, Marcus Aurelius, Nero
- Abolitionismabolitionists, abolitionist movement, anti-slavery, antislavery, abolitionism
- Black AmericaBlack churches, NAACP, civil rights activism, Jim Crow, racial justice
- ReconstructionFourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, carpetbaggers, scalawags, Radical Republicans
- Abolitionabolitionists, Frederick Douglass, abolitionist movement, Underground Railroad, Emancipation Proclamation
freedmenslaveholders
Owners of enslaved people
masters · slave owners · planters · enslavers · overseers