USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Scalawags were southerners. Most carpetbaggers were Republicans. Carpetbaggers helped African Americans. Scalawags supported Reconstruction.

Detailed explanation-2: -Carpetbaggers also worked as teachers, merchants, businessmen, or at the Freedman’s Bureau, an organization created by Congress to provide aid for newly liberated Black Americans. Scalawags were white southern Republicans who backed the policies of Reconstruction rather than opposed them.

Detailed explanation-3: -These “carpetbaggers”–whom many in the South viewed as opportunists looking to exploit and profit from the region’s misfortunes–supported the Republican Party, and would play a central role in shaping new southern governments during Reconstruction.

Detailed explanation-4: -How were scalawags and carpetbaggers different? Carpetbaggers were people who had rushed to the South carrying all their possessions in bags made of carpeting. Scalawags were people who the Democrats believed who had betrayed the South by voting for the Republican party.

Detailed explanation-5: -Therefore, the majority of Southerners saw them as traitors. Former Confederate soldiers were disenfranchised at the beginning of Reconstruction because they had not yet taken an Ironclad Oath of allegiance to the Union. This gave incoming Northerners more political power.