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After Emancipation Southern Plantations Hunted for Cheap Asian Labor
White planters replaced freed slaves with Chinese “Coolies” during Reconstruction.
On 25th December 1868, President Andrew Johnson (D-Tennessee) issued a full pardon and amnesty to all those who supported the Confederacy. In the post Civil War America, now everyone was free to rebuild their life, hence the name ‘Reconstruction era.’
All across the South, black Americans tried to piece together their lives and rebuild their families that had been separated during slavery. They tried to get involved in politics, seek respectable work.
Meanwhile, white landowners struggled to come to terms with the fact that they could not enslave black workers anymore but rather had to employ them with formal contracts in place. They believed their black workers were becoming complacent and unproductive because of their newfound freedom and some competition was just the thing that would get them back on track again. And so, came the Chinese laborers.
Chinese workers migrated to America to work in the gold mines when excitement about America’s gold rush spread all over the world. When the gold rush turned out to be a disappointment for many, the Chinese began to look for other work, ending up building the…
