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The Poverty Of The United States Essay

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The Character of Poverty in America
Poverty has always been a key factor in United States History. Ever sense Americas birth there have been groups affected by poverty, but the forms of the poverty that affected these groups have changed as well as the nature of poverty itself in the USA. The abolition of slavery, the forced assimilation of native Americans, and mass immigration changed character of poverty within the united states change due to an evolution from agriculture to industry and a change in the domestic policies of the government. The abolition of slavery changed the character of poverty for African Americans in the USA. In the years 1865 to 1870 the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were added to the United States constitution, successfully abolishing slavery in America and giving all citizens their basic rights. When these amendments were passed, most freed slaves have very little money and owned nothing. According to the well-known abolitionist Fredrick Douglas when slaves were emancipated “they were sent away empty-handed, without money, and without friends and without a foot of land upon which to stand” (Doc 4, 12). Given this many former slavers turned to the job they had been doing most of their lives, farming, to provide for themselves, but given that many could afford to purchase land numerous groups of blacks turned to the system of sharecropping.
Sharecropping was a system in which landless workers, often former slaves, farmed land

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