Use an encyclopedia, the Internet, or other sources to research the following Reconstruction scandals. 300 words each for all three of them. - the Tweed Ring in New York
- the Credit Mobilier Scandal
- Black Friday

Black Friday

The Gold Ring was formed by Jay Gould and James Fisk.  The then president  of the United States, Ulysses  S. Grant, made an effort to stabilize the US dollar,  boost the economy after the hits of the civil war, and also to pay off the national debt caused by the war. He tried to do this by selling treasury gold every week. The first step he took to get a grip on the economy was to sign the Public Credit Act, which enabled citizens to have their bonds repaid in gold or the equivalent and so get a more secure circulation of “sound money “. Moreover,  president Grant placed the very talented George Boutwell in charge of the United States Treasury and he started selling gold on a weekly basis to buy US wartime bonds.  At the same time he improved the tax collecting methods to avoid counterfeiting and was able to keep the gold price and the money supply level artificially low. Jay Gould and James Fisk infiltrated in the social circles of  president Grant to receive confidential information of the selling of gold. They plotted to stop the president from selling the gold weekly, so that the price of gold could rise again. They also fed the president with false premonitions that the gold selling would harm farmers. When they thought that they found a profitable price to buy gold, they did so, in order to sell the gold again later for a higher price and so increase their wealth.  But the president came to know about their foul scheme and he ordered more gold to be sold on this particular Friday ,24th of September 1869 ,called “ Black Friday’’ and in this way the price of gold went so low that Gould and Fisk lost most of their money.  

The Dawes Acts (including civil service reforms)

The 1887 Dawes Act, gave the authority to the president of the United States to allot Native American tribal land to individual Native Americans. If they accepted these allotments and would go live separately from their tribes, they would be granted the US citizenship.  The creator of the act was Massachusetts senator Henry Laurens Dawes. The Dawes Act was a way to transfer tribal and communal ownership of land into individual ownership, and also to give non-Native Americans the chance to purchase these lands. In 1891 the Dawes Act was amended, then in 1898 into the Curtis Act and then again in 1906 by the Burke Act. For decades after these Acts, the Tribal communities have sold a great part of their communal land to non-Native Americans and in this way the government managed to destroy their tribal way of living . The aim of the government was to open the Indian lands for  European- American settlers to farm and make way for railroads. Through this Act,  tribal owned land in America decreased from 138 million acres in 1887 to only 48 million acres in 1934. The Dawes act had an impact on the gender roles and the social structure in the Native American community because to be able to receive land, the women had to be officially married. Before, the women had control over property and descent because of the matrilineal tribal society.  Now the men had to go out working in the fields while the women had to do domestic chores. The original plan, concocted by Henry Dawes to create respectable farmers according to the European –American model has failed and left the tribal community as mere survivors of destruction.

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