Virginia faced significant social, political, and economic challenges following the Civil War. Politically, it had to redesign its government to give African Americans equal rights and ban slavery. Economically, the war had collapsed the plantation system and destroyed much of the state's infrastructure, leaving most people poor. To help rebuild, the Freedmen's Bureau provided food, healthcare and other assistance to newly freed slaves, and a sharecropping system developed to provide former slaves with land and work while plantation owners lacked funds to pay laborers.

1. Reconstruction Rebuilding the South

2. What kinds of problems did Virginia face following the Civil War?

3. Virginia faced social, political, and economic problems following the Civil War.

4. What was the impact of the Civil War on the politics and government of Virginia? Politics: the methods involved in managing a government Abraham Lincoln, United States President during the Civil War Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America

5. What was the political impact of the Civil War on Virginia? Political: having to do with government Andrew Johnson, President of the United States during Reconstruction

9. What was the impact of the Civil War on the economy of Virginia? impact: the effect of one thing on another economy: how a country manages its resources Sheet music by James Bland, an African American composer

10. Virginia faced many economic problems after the Civil War. Economic: producing, developing, managing wealth and resources Sharecropper child working in a cotton field

11. Life for Virginians was difficult during Reconstruction. Sharecropper’s cabin Sharecroppers picking cotton

18. Railroads, bridges, and crops had been destroyed during the war .

19. Most people in Virginia and the South were poor. Times were hard for everybody.

20. Virginia had to rebuild the state after the Civil War.

21. How did Virginians start to rebuild the state after the Civil War?

22. The problems of newly freed slaves were addressed (given attention) by the Freedman’s Bureau.

23. The United States Congress created the Freedman’s Bureau to help newly freed slaves.

24. The Freedman’s Bureau provided (gave) the newly freed slaves help in several ways. Beaufort, SC

25. Slaves were given food and medical care.

26. A new economic system developed, called sharecropping.

27. Why did sharecropping develop? Sharecropping developed because plantation owners lacked money to pay workers, and former slaves needed land and work.