HIST 2154 - Minorities in US History (OER): Module 4: The Civil War & Reconstruction, 1860-1880

Topic 1: Native Americans in the Civil War & Reconstruction

• "Move on!" Has the Native American no rights that the naturalized American is bound to respect?” 
• Collection of Primary Sources Related to the Navajo Long Walk & Treaty of Bosque Redondo, 1862-1868
• Collection of Primary Source Excerpts Related to the Sand Creek Massacre, 1865
• Statement to Congress by P.P. Pitchlynn of the Choctaw Nation, 1868
• Ft. Laramie Treaty, 1868
• Treaty with the Navajo Nation, 1868
• Indian Appropriations Act, 1871
• Two Mohave Boys Dressed in Loincloths, 1871
• Paiute Children Playing a Game Called Wolf and Deer, 1872
• The Arrow Maker & his Daughter, 1872
• Map of Western Reservations, 1875
• Chief Joseph on Indian Affairs, 1877

Topic 2: African American Voices in the Civil War & Reconstruction

• Harriet Jacobs on Rape & Slavery, 1860
• The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
• Charlotte Forten teaches freed children in South Carolina, 1864
• Jourdon Anderson writes his former enslaver, 1865
• Freedmen discuss post-emancipation life with General Sherman, 1865
• The Freedmen's Bureau, Record of County Marriages, 1865
• Freedmen’s Bureau, Report on Teaching, 1865
• Freedmen's Bureau Applications to Lease Seized and Abandoned Land, 1865-1869
• Petition of Colored Citizens of Mobile, 1865
• Mississippi Black Codes, 1865
• “Emancipation” by Thomas Nast, 1865
• Proceedings in a Case between an Alabama Freedwoman and Her Employer's Son, 1866
• Affidavit of an Alabama Black Teacher and Clergyman, 1866
• Report of a Speech by a Virginia Freedman, 1866
• “The First Vote,” Drawn by A.R. Waud, 1867
• "Report of Names of Freed People who have been Assaulted with Intent to Kill in Rome, GA," 1867
• Backlash Against Black Workers, 1868
• Alexander Clark’s Speech at the "Colored Convention" in Des Moines, Iowa, 1868
• Fifteenth Amendment print, 1870
• Group portrait of African American legislators: Robert C. De Large, Jefferson H. Long, H.R. Revels, Benj. S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. Rainy [i.e., Rainey], and R. Brown Elliot, 1873
• Photomontage of members of the first South Carolina legislature following the Civil War, 1876
• Frederick Douglass on remembering the Civil War, 1877

Topic 3: Women’s Voices in the Civil War & Reconstruction

• A Plantation Mistress Decries a "Monstrous System"
• Harriet Jacobs on Rape & Slavery, 1860
• Charlotte Forten teaches freed children in South Carolina, 1864
• A case of sexual violence during Reconstruction, 1866
• Petition for Universal Suffrage, 1866
• Laundry Workers Strike, 1866
• Laundry Workers' Tools of the Trade
• Proceedings in a Case between an Alabama Freedwoman and Her Employer's Son, 1866
• "All Bound Up Together," 1866
• Backlash Against Black Workers, 1868
• The Supreme Court Declares Women "Unfit for Civil Life," 1873
• The Supreme Court Rules that the Constitution Does Not Protect Women's Right to Vote, 1875

Topic 4: Latinx and Asian American Voices in the Civil War & Reconstruction

• Chinese Merchant Complains of Racist Abuse, 1860
• A Chinese Immigrant Recalls the Dangers of Railroad Work

Crash Course US History [CC-BY-SA]

• The Election of 1860 & the Road to Disunion
• The Civil War, Part I
• The Civil War Part II
• Reconstruction & 1876

Crash Course Black American History [CC-BY-SA]

• Black Americans in the Civil War
• Reconstruction

Khan Academy, [CC-BY-SA]

• The Emancipation Proclamation
• The 13th Amendment
• The 14th Amendment
• The 15th Amendment
• The Failure of Reconstruction

 Black History in Two Minutes [Licensing/Use Statement]

• Migrations: Exodusters to the Great Migration
• The History of Black Farmers
• The Fifteenth Amendment
• The Civil War and Emancipation
• 40 Acres and a Mule
• Lynching
• Ida B. Wells
• Robert Smalls
• Freedman's Bank
• The Fisk Jubilee Singers
• Reconstruction: The Vote

Ted-Ed [CC-BY-NC-ND]

• What is Juneteenth and why is it so Important?
• Debunking the Myth of the Lost Cause
• The Last of the Comanches
• Why the US Army Tried to Exterminate the Bison

The American Yawp Textbook [CC-BY-SA]

• The American Yawp, Chapter 14
• The American Yawp, Chapter 15

African American History Textbook [CC-BY-SA]

• African Americans and the Civil War, pp. 148-167
• Reconstruction, pp. 168-188

New World Encyclopedia [CC-BY-SA]

• Reconstruction
• Andrew Johnson
• Equal Protection Clause
• Ku Klux Klan
• Freedman's Bureau
• Indian Wars

Women & the American Story [New York Historical Society, Use Statement]

• The Civil War
  • Elizabeth Blackwell
  • Emily Jane Liles Harris
  • Loreta Janeta Velazquez
  • Harriet Tubman
  • Louisa Smith
  • Mary Todd Lincoln
• Reconstruction
  • Matilda Hughes
  • Susie Baker King Taylor
  • Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas
  • Elizabeth Keckley

The Conversation [CC-BY-ND]

• "What Everyone Should Know about Reconstruction" 
• Exploiting black labor after the abolition of slavery
• 22 million reasons black America doesn’t trust banks
• How Black people in the 19th century used photography as a tool for social change
• Charlottesville belies racism’s deep roots in the North

Other

• The Sand Creek Massacre: 1864 Leadup & Massacre [Sand Creek Massacre Foundation/NPS, Public Domain]

• Online
• Face to Face

• Concept Knowledge Self Assessment (Pre/Post)
• Discussion Options
• Study Guide

Stanford History Education Group (SHEG)
requires free account to download teaching materials

• Battle of Little Bighorn
• Radical Reconstruction
• Reconstruction SAC
• Sharecropping
• Thomas Nast's Political Cartoons

History Matters (HM)

• Who Owns this Land?

National Archives: Docs Teach [Public Domain] 

• Black Soldiers in the US Military during the Civil War
• Evaluating Perspectives on Westward Expansion
• The Impact of Westward Expansion on Native American Communities

Other

• Comparing Reports of the Battle of Little Bighorn [Teaching with Primary Sources, LOC]

Native American Voices 

• Though most people think only of developments in the South when they hear the word “Reconstruction” in American history, there were many developments in the West that mirrored Reconstruction’s attempt to “remake” the former Confederacy in the image of the urban, industrial, and capitalist North. What kinds of change did the West see? How did these changes affect Native American tribes in the west?  

• Describe the “Indian Wars” between 1860 and 1880. How did Native Americans resist American expansion and Indian Removal? Where were these wars fought and between whom (the US government and what tribes)? What was at stake? What was the outcome? 

• How might the violence of the Indian Wars (particularly things like the Sand Creek Massacre) have affected public perception of American Indian policy? 

African American Voices 

• What role did African Americans play in the Civil War? 

• Some historians have argued that the Emancipation Proclamation was a war strategy, rather than a sincere effort to free enslaved people. Do you agree or disagree? Why? 

• What did freedom mean to African Americans?  How did they express their newfound freedom? What were the successes of the Freedman’s Bureau? What were the limits of this freedom? 

• In what ways was the impact of the 15th Amendment limited, both by design and by application? 

• What was the “Reign of Terror” during Reconstruction? How did this violence affect the lives of African Americans in the south? 

• Why did Reconstruction end in 1877? What factors contributed to the failure of Reconstruction? 

Women’s Voices 

• What roles did women play in the Civil War? 

• How did the Fourteenth Amendment encourage the women’s suffrage movement in the United States? What were the limits of the Fourteenth Amendment for women? 

• How did the lives of American women between 1860 and 1880 differ based on region, class, race, and ethnicity?