Source G In the districts I have visited across Georgia and South Carolina, the freedpeople show a great desire for education and independent land ownership...

This is the highest-value question type on the paper (15 marks), requiring a sustained, well-balanced argument that compares the view in the question with alternative perspectives. To reach Level 4 (13-15 marks), you need to use the source effectively, deploy substantial own knowledge, and reach a well-supported conclusion.

What does the source show?

The source is a report by a Freedmen's Bureau agent in 1866, describing conditions in Georgia and South Carolina. It presents evidence of both progress and obstacles:

• Progress: Freedpeople showed desire for education and land ownership, and had established their own schools and churches with little outside help.
• Obstacles: Former slaveholders refused to sell land, imposed exploitative labor contracts resembling slavery, and local courts were biased against Black citizens.
• The agent feared that "without continued federal protection," the gains of emancipation would be reversed within a generation.

Evidence that Reconstruction was a failure for formerly enslaved people:

• The source describes labor contracts that "differ little from the conditions of slavery" and courts that refused justice to Black citizens - problems that worsened after federal withdrawal.
• After the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction and federal troops were withdrawn from the South, Southern states passed Black Codes and later Jim Crow laws that imposed legal segregation and restricted Black rights.
• Sharecropping trapped many formerly enslaved families in cycles of debt to white landowners, creating economic dependence that resembled slavery in practice.
• The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups used violence, intimidation, and murder to suppress Black political participation and enforce racial subordination.
• The Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision (1896) upheld "separate but equal" segregation, effectively legalizing the Jim Crow system for the next six decades.
• The failure to redistribute land (despite early promises like Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15, which offered "forty acres") left freedpeople economically dependent on their former enslavers.

Evidence that Reconstruction achieved important gains:

• The source notes that freedpeople established their own schools and churches - institutions that became foundations of Black community life.
• The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery permanently - a fundamental and irreversible change.
• The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born in the United States.
• The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of race.
• During Reconstruction, African Americans held political office at every level - including two US Senators (Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi) and numerous state legislators and local officials.
• The Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872) provided food, medical care, legal assistance, and education to formerly enslaved people. It helped establish over 1,000 schools.
• Historically Black colleges and universities (such as Howard University, Fisk University, and Hampton Institute) were founded during this period and became lasting educational institutions.

Reaching a balanced conclusion:

Reconstruction was both a partial success and a substantial failure. It achieved permanent constitutional changes that, though undermined for decades, eventually provided the legal foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments remain cornerstones of American law. However, the practical gains of Reconstruction were largely reversed after 1877, and the Freedmen's Bureau agent's prediction proved remarkably accurate: without sustained federal protection, the gains of emancipation were undermined within a generation. The failure was not in the ideals of Reconstruction but in the lack of political will to sustain them - particularly the failure to redistribute land and the premature withdrawal of federal enforcement.

Exam technique: For 15-mark questions, you must sustain your argument throughout. Avoid simply listing points; instead, explain how each piece of evidence supports or challenges the claim. Use the source as a foundation but add substantial own knowledge. The best answers show awareness that historical judgments depend on what criteria you apply - Reconstruction looks different depending on whether you measure it by legal, political, economic, or social outcomes.