CARPETBAGGERS

CARPETBAGGERS The term "carpetbaggers" historically has been used to describe those northern politicians, adventurers, federal employees and idealists who migrated to the South duringthe Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. The term itself is derived from the popular impression that these indivi­duals, in their hurry to reach the South, packed what belong­ings they could in "carpetbags," a form of luggage used during the mid-nineteenth century. Together with their southern coun­terparts, the so-called "scalawags," the "carpetbaggers" and southern blacks, protected by federal bayonets, controlled a number of southern state and municipal governments for several years after 1867. See also: BLACK REPUBLICAN RE­CONSTRUCTION.