1865–1900

Abstract

The consequences of the Civil War shaped every aspect of American life in the second half of the nineteenth century. The South had to be rebuilt and the fate of four million African-American former slaves decided. Race relations were the paramount, and the most controversial, southern concern. Race was also an issue in the vast new western territories that the United States had taken in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War. Many Americans believed that westward expansion required control over the American Indian and Mexican inhabitants of the region and its resources.