The name
carpetbagger is a derisive term meaning Northerners who went to the South during the Reconstruction, following the
end of the U.S Civil War and the subsequent defeat of the Confederacy. The long standing stereotype of them as opportunists who has nothing in mind but to get rich quick is especially popular. Allied with the freed slaves (called the Freedmen ) and Southern symphatizers called Scalawags, the
carpetbaggers became familiar faces in the Southern states. Although many Northerners began to move to the South during the early days of the war, it was only during the Reconstruction when carpetbaggers became prominent in the political and economic affairs in the former Confederacy. These people where mostly white Republicans; some are abolitionists. Some came with the sincere purpose of helping freed slaves as well as to rehabilitate the devastated economy, but there as well are some who only want to gain profit by unscrupulous means. Thus the carpetbaggers became the object of hatred by many white Southerners.
References
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. ”,” http:// www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/pfc.html/ accessed February 19 2008
Mintz, S. (2007) Reconstruction. Digital History. http:// www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article-display.cfm?HHID=137 accessed February 19 2008
Wikipedia contributors, ‘
carpetbagger’, Wikipedia the free encyclopedia , 17 February 2008, O6:50 UTC, http:// www.en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carpetbagger&oldid=1919642727 accessed February 19 2008