In U.S. history, carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction to take up new business, reform or political opportunities. More generally the term refers to the political faction of the Republican Party in the South controlled by the new arrivals. They were allied politically with Freedmen (freed slaves), and Scalawags (Southern whites) in the Republican Party, which in turn controlled ex-Confederate states for varying periods between 1867 and 1877; Carpetbaggers were in power on average 3 or 4 years except in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida, where their rule was especially corrupt and lasted about 10 years. They were never in control of Virginia or Tennessee. (more on Carpetbaggers) Scalawags were southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction after the Civil War or who joined with the black freedmen and the carpetbaggers in support of Republican Party policies. (more on Scalawags)
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