Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862-1877

Jere Nash

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781496858528
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

Throughout the ten-year period following the end of the Civil War, Mississippians responded to broader movements in the country, to changes in the national and international economy, and to congressional and presidential initiatives as they worked to recover from the devastation of war and pursue new expressions of freedom. Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862–1877 is a compelling account of how Black Mississippians embraced this freedom and how white Mississippians could not.

Recording the mechanics of how the Confederate states were allowed to resume representation in Congress, the restoration of civil governments, and the political freedoms the formerly enslaved people acquired, Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862–1877 documents the ways economic freedoms, such as the acquisition of land and the negotiation of fair labor contracts, evolved. Jere Nash begins this exploration with how the formerly enslaved men and women changed the political landscape for Abraham Lincoln by taking matters into their own hands as the Union Army moved into Mississippi in 1862. Nash then traces the federal occupation of the state, the adoption of the infamous Black Codes by the state legislature in 1865, the drafting and approval of the new constitution in 1869, the selection of the first two Black men ever to serve in the United States Senate, and the use of terror and fraud by white Democrats to steal the election of 1875 and regain political power. Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862–1877 is a detailed and comprehensive history of this turbulent and eventful era in Mississippi.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. 1862–1864 The Beginning of Freedom
• Chapter 2. 1865 Mississippi at the End of the War
• Chapter 3. 1865–1866 The Experience of Freedom
• Chapter 4. 1865–1866 The Black Code
• Chapter 5. 1866–1867 Congressional Republicans Take Charge
• Chapter 6. 1868–1869 A New Constitution: Black and White Republicans Assert Their Power
• Chapter 7. 1868–1869 A New Constitution: White Democrats Assert Their Power
• Chapter 8. 1870–1872 Black Officials, Public Schools, and Terrorism
• Chapter 9. 1873 Cotton, Economics, and Politics
• Chapter 10. 1874 The Beginning of the End
• Chapter 11. 1875 The End: White Democrats Reassert Their Power
• Chapter 12. 1876–1877 The Loss of Freedom
• Epilogue Historical Memory: The Dunning Era, JFK, and Mississippi Textbooks
• Notes
• Bibliography and Sources
• Index