Question

How did life in the South change politically, economically, and socially after the Civil War?

Answer 1

The most difficult task confronting many southerners during reconstruction was devising a new system of labour to replace the shattered world of slavery. The economic life of planters, former slaves and nonslaveholding whites were transformed after the civil war.

During reconstruction many small white farmers thrown in to poverty by the war entered in to cotton production a major change from prewar days when they concentrated on growing food for their own families.

Increasingly both white and black farmers came to depend on local merchants for credit . A cycle of debt often ensured and year by year the promise of economic independence faded.