Carpetbagger Definition Us History

Carpetbagger definition a northerner who went to the south after the civil war and became active in republican politics especially so as to profiteer from the unsettled social and political conditions of the area during reconstruction.

Carpetbagger definition us history.

In general the term carpetbagger refers to a traveler who arrives in a new region with only a satchel or carpetbag of possessions and who attempts to profit from or gain. The term carpetbagger used exclusively as a pejorative term originated from the carpet bags a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric which many of these newcomers carried. Sixty carpetbaggers were elected to congress among them were most republican governors in the south during reconstruction. A carpetbagger was a northerner who moved to the south after the american civil war this period is called the reconstruction era.

Carpetbagger is a term from the united states political history. Carpetbagger definition us history. Someone who tries to be elected as a politician in a place away from their home because they. Following the american civil war if someone called you a carpetbagger or scalawag it wasn t meant as a compliment.

The origin of the term is unclear but it was known in the united states from at least the 1840s at first denoting a worthless farm animal and then denoting a. Carpetbagger in the united states a derogatory term for an individual from the north who relocated to the south during the reconstruction period 1865 77 following the american civil war the term was applied to northern politicians and financial adventurers whom southerners accused of coming to the south to use the newly enfranchised freedmen as a means of obtaining office or profit. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. Carpetbagger definition is a northerner in the south after the american civil war usually seeking private gain under the reconstruction governments.

A great many contemporary observers believed that the real purpose behind radical reconstruction was to secure the domination of the republican party in national political life through the newly freed population in the south. The republicans took for granted that the freed slaves would vote republican. Scalawag after the american civil war a pejorative term for a white southerner who supported the federal plan of reconstruction or who joined with black freedmen and the so called carpetbaggers in support of republican party policies.