White southerners generally believed that the goal of all northerners who moved south during Reconstruction was to exert control and dominate the South politically, socially, and economically. They considered them as "carpetbaggers" and viewed their motives with suspicion and hostility. Many white southerners saw the northerners as opportunistic and corrupt individuals who aimed to exploit the chaos and devastation caused by the Civil War for personal gain. They believed that these northerners lacked genuine concern for the well-being and interests of the South and sought to impose their own values and ideologies upon them.
