History buffs please help! Reconstruction 1866. Slavery. ?

Question

I am having a hard time understanding this:

What were the changes in the southern economy brought about by the response of both white and blacks to the end of slavery??

Answer 1

. Instead of slaves working for nothing, many became tenant farmers on plantations working for the same type of people that had formerly owned them,.Just the desire to be free , didn't mean the former slaves had the knowledge to survive . The freedman bureau, while probably staffed by Mostly good people,also contained some of the worse crooks the north could supply.Agriculture was still the main source of work for blacks and whites.There was little or no competition for jobs, as blacks were still providing most labor in menial positions.Poor whites had rarely owned slaves.The lot of most blacks that stayed in the south did not improve drastically, but they were free, and as time went on their education and hard work allowed them to join the main stream .

Answer 2

There WAS NO SOUTHERN ECONOMY LEFT after the Civil War... it was completely destroyed..  that is about as much of a change as I can imagine.  The whole infrastructure was destroyed and there was nothing left.

Answer 3

The economy crashed badly. The south had to figure out how to run the production of crops without the aid of slaves which was a new concept then.

Answer 4

The South's economy was based on agriculture of crops that were very...labor intensive, like cotton, rice, and tobacco.  They were so intensive that cultivating them was considered "below" a white person.  The whole society had to be re-aligned to accept the fact that whites didn't have the "God-given" right to order blacks to do the dirty, back-breaking work that the whites wouldn't do.