|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
Scalawag
SCALAWAGSCALAWAG, originally used to describe runty or diseased cattle, was the term of opprobrium applied to white southerners who joined with former slaves and carpet-baggers in support of Republican policies during the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War. In the states of the upper South, white Republicans were generally hill-country farmers with Unionist sympathies. Those in the Deep South came from elements of the planter-business aristocracy with Whig antecedents. Neither group was committed to black rights or suffrage, but their role in Reconstruction was important. Constituting approximately 20 percent of the white electorate, they often provided the crucial margin of victory for the Republicans. In the constitutional conventions of 1867–1868 and in the subsequent state governments, they exerted leadership disproportionate to their popular strength. BIBLIOGRAPHYFoner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863– 1877. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. William G.Shade/c. p. See alsoKu Klux Klan ; Reconstruction ; Sectionalism . |
|
|
Cite this article
"Scalawag." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Scalawag." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401803742.html "Scalawag." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401803742.html |
|
Scalawags
SCALAWAGS"Scalawag" was a derogatory term used by recalcitrant white southerners after the Civil War and during the dozen years of Reconstruction (1865–1877). It was applied to those white southerners who cooperated with the Union troops and with the Reconstruction State legislatures. Many of these "Scalawags" came from small farm, non-slaveholding backgrounds and in fact had resented the southern planter class and its slave system even before the Civil War. They felt correctly that the existence of slavery hurt them too, because slave labor depressed the bargaining power of wage labor. They argued that slaves would always impoverish its non-slave-owning white neighbors. The Scalawags and many former slaves tried to join the Republican Party in the South to secure their status as full southern citizens. The majority of southern whites, however, looked at the Scalawags with contempt. In their eyes, the Scalawags were traitors to the southern cause and to their fellow whites. Some of these defeated members of the Confederacy joined paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Mississippi "Red Shirts" and others. They wanted to intimidate or, in some cases, to kill both the former slaves who were trying to secure their new rights and the Scalawags, who were trying to build an alliance with the exslaves in the southern Republican Party. The intimidation worked, for the most part, and the Republican Party never established itself in the post–Civil War South. See also: Carpetbaggers |
|
|
Cite this article
"Scalawags." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Scalawags." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400834.html "Scalawags." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400834.html |
|
scalawag
scal·a·wag / ˈskaləˌwag/ (also scal·ly·wag / ˈskalē-/ ) • n. inf. a person who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal. ∎ hist. a white Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. |
|
|
Cite this article
"scalawag." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "scalawag." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-scalawag.html "scalawag." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-scalawag.html |
|
scalawag
scalawag A White supporter of the Republican Reconstruction programme in the American South in the early years after the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Like the CARPETBAGGERS with whom they associated, the scalawags were a diverse group including some profiteers, but also businessmen, reformers, former Southern Whigs, and poor yeoman farmers who supported the Republican regime.
|
|
|
Cite this article
"scalawag." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "scalawag." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-scalawag.html "scalawag." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-scalawag.html |
|
scalawags
scalawags , derogatory term used in the South after the Civil War to describe native white Southerners who joined the Republican party and aided in carrying out the congressional Reconstruction program. A Republican who came from the north was called a carpetbagger . |
|
|
Cite this article
"scalawags." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "scalawags." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-scalawag.html "scalawags." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-scalawag.html |
|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries:
HighBeam™ Research, Inc. © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Encyclopedia.com advertising network includes:
