The region developed rapidly during and after Reconstruction. There were conflicts in Tangipahoa Parish among interests related to construction of railroads, exploitation of timber, yeoman farmers in the piney woods keeping truck farms, and the beginning of manufacturing. Sugar cane depended on the labor of large gangs of enslaved African Americans before the Civil War. After the war and emancipation, some freedmen stayed to work on the plantations as laborers. Others moved to New Orleans and other cities, seeking different work. This area had rapid development and a high rate of immigrants and migrants from other areas of the country. The eastern Florida Parishes had the most mob violence and highest rate of lynchings in southern Louisiana.