I think the size of the African American population in each state affected Reconstruction because there was so many slaves. After the civil war, they just wanted to regroup and fix their disasters and slaves were everywhere in both good and bad terms. It helped them for work when they didnt have machines quite yet and around this time they didn't have the free slaves. It was much harder though when slaves began running away when they did have free slave states. This didn't stop slavery though because they required all run away slaves to be caught and returned. And this didn't end slavery completely. Some were in free slave states and still being sent back illegally even if they were free. This caused many problems with the north and the south because the south wanted slaves and the north didnt .But then machines were built and factories so women and children would start doing the work. It was dangerous.
