The negro in Tennessee during the Reconstruction period

The emancipation of the slaves, as a result of the Civil War, forced upon the South the difficult problem of determining the place of the free negroes under a new organization of society. In this thesis an attempt has been made to show the development of certain phases of the problem in Tennessee during the period of radical rule from 1865 to 1869. A large part of the material for this study was taken from the newspapers of that period and unfortunately the files to which I had access were not complete. In order to fill in the gaps I accepted the very kind offer of Docter P. H. Hamer to use his history of Tennessee which has not yet been published. I have been greatly aided in this work also by the helpful suggestions and criticisms which Docter Hamer made while it was being done.