11.4 - Post Civil War Era

Eleventh Grade - Eleventh Social Studies - 11.4 - Post Civil War Era

From EngageNY

Reconstruction resulted in political reunion and expanded constitutional rights. However, those rights were undermined, and issues of inequality continued for African Americans, women, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Chinese immigrants.

11.4a Between 1865 and 1900, constitutional rights were extended to African Americans. However, their ability to exercise these rights was undermined by individuals, groups, and government institutions.

• Students will examine the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and consider the role of Radical Republicans in Reconstruction.
• Students will investigate the ways individuals, groups, and government institutions limited the rights of African Americans, including the use of Black Codes, the passage of Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, restrictions on voting rights, and Supreme Court cases including the Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
• Students will examine the ways in which freedmen attempted to build independent lives, including the activities of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the creation of educational institutions, and political participation.
• Students will examine the impacts of the election of 1876 and the compromise of 1877on African Americans.

11.4b The 14th and 15th amendments failed to address the rights of women.

• Students will examine the exclusion of women from the 14th and 15th amendments and the subsequent struggle for voting and increased property rights in the late 19th century. The students will examine the work of Susan B. Anthony.

11.4c Federal policies regarding westward expansion had positive effects on the national economy but negative consequences for Native Americans.

• Students will examine the economic effects of the Homestead Act (1862) and the Pacific Railway Act (1862) on westward expansion.
• Students will examine the effect of federal policies on Native Americans on the Great Plains, including reservation policies, the Dawes Act (1887), and forced acculturation efforts (Carlisle Indian School).

11.4d Racial and economic motives contributed to long-standing discrimination against Mexican Americans and opposition to Chinese immigration.

• Students will analyze relevant provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as compared with the actual treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest, including California, from 1848 to 1900.
• Students will examine the contributions of Chinese to the national economy and reasons for nativist opposition to their continued immigration (Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882).