Carpetbagger derogatory term originally used in the u s.
Facts about carpet baggers.
The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders.
Carpetbaggers was a derisive term that referred to northern merchants who arrived in the south in the early days of reconstruction 1865 1877 the twelve year period of rebuilding that followed the american civil war 1861 1865.
During the reconstruction period 1865 77 to denote a northerner who moved to the south.
Epithet used in the south after the civil war to describe northerners who went to the south during reconstruction.
During the reconstruction era which lasted in 1865 until 1877 there was a carpetbagger.
The term was used to call the northerner who relocated to the south after the american civil war ended.
Carpetbaggers were so named because many of them carried carpetbags as luggage.
Although regarded as transients because of the carpetbags in which they carried their possessions hence the name carpetbaggers most.
It was applied to politicians and financial adventurers whom southerners accused of coming south to use the newly enfranchised freedmen to obtain office or profit.
The term carpetbagger used exclusively as a pejorative term originated from the carpet bags a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric which many of these newcomers carried.