Where exactly were former slaves promised 40 acres and a mule? Some blacks think it was in the Emacipation Proclamation. Was it ever part of any legislation? I was under the impression that the idea was floated around by certain government oficials at the time, but went away without really bing formalized. What’s the real story?
Per this article, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134429388_fortyacres01.html it was a field order by General Sherman and applied to a specific part of South Carolina. It appears that the Freedmen’s Bureau was planning on distributing the 800,000 acres of seized Confederate land before political pressure caused Andrew Johnson to reinstate the land to its original owners.
Interesting article, Neddy, thanks.
That article is very thorough on Sherman’s field order, but perhaps a bit more needs to be said about the Freedmen’s Bureau. Congress created the Bureau in March 1865 with the intention of instituting a more permanent Southern “land reform”. During the course of the Civil War the army had seized a large number of abandoned plantations, and legislation passed during the War allowed the government to confiscate and gain permanent title to such land for nonpayment of wartime property taxes or if the owner were a Confederate army officer or office holder.
The law creating the Freedmen’s Bureau gave the Bureau temporary control of such land, and instructed it to divide the land into 40-acre plots and rent it to former slave families at low rates, with an option to buy at pro-rated 1860 prices after three years. In other words, if a 4000-acre plantation sold for a particular price in 1860, former slaves would have an option to buy 40 acres for one one-hundredth of that price in 1868. Congress envisioned that, during the three-year rental period, confiscation proceedings would take place to give the government title to the land in time for the sale.
The legislation, then, as opposed to the Field Order, didn’t give anybody 40 acres, but offered an option to buy at a realistic price. And it didn’t say anything about mules. President Lincoln signed the bill creating the Bureau into law on March 2, 1865.
Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated a month later, and Andrew Johnson did not share his commitment toward the victims of slavery. Johnson effectively sabotaged the Freedmen’s Bureau by (a) instructing federal prosecutors to cease all confiscation proceedings, so that the government would never gain title to abandoned land; and (b) returning land which had already been seized to its former Confederate owners. With no land, the Freedmen’s Bureau was reduced to an underfunded educational foundation. Southern land remained in plantation-size plots, and the former slaves had little choice but to sharecrop.
All in all, one of the sadder chapters in American history.