New men, Negroes, merchants, and Jews became landowners.

The number of small farms naturally increased but so in some instances did the land concentrated into large holdings.
It was inevitable that conditions of Negro life should undergo a revolutionary change during the reconstruction.

The serious matter of looking out for himself and his family and of making a living dampened the Negro's cheerful spirits.

Released from the discipline of slavery and often misdirected by the worst of teachers, the Negro race naturally ran into excesses of petty criminality.

Even under the reconstruction governments the proportion of Negro to white criminals was about ten to one.