Forty acres and mules refers to a pledge made in the United States for agrarian reform for former black peasants enslaved by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865. This follows a series of conversations between the War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton and the radical Abolitionists of the Republic of Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens followed the disruption of the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War. Many free people believe and are told by various political figures that they have the right to own the land they have long served as slaves, and eager to control their own. The widely-freed man is expected to legally claim 40 acres (16 hectares) of land (quarter quarter quarter) and mule after the end of the war, shortly after news such as Medan Sherman Special Order, No. 15 and Freedmen's Bureau Act are explicitly reversed.
Several land redistributions occurred under military jurisdiction during the war and for a short period thereafter. However, federal and state policies during the Reconstruction era emphasized the wages of labor, not land ownership, for blacks. Almost all the land allocated during the war was returned to pre-war owners. Some black communities retain control over their lands, and some families acquire new land by homiliading. The ownership of black land increased markedly in Mississippi during the 19th century, in particular. The country has many undeveloped lowlands behind riverside areas that had been cultivated before the war. Most blacks acquire land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at 15,000,000 hectares (6,100,000 ha) in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of their property for many people.
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The institution of slavery in the United States has revoked several generations of opportunity to own land. Legally, slaves can not own property, but in practice they gain capital - and generally consider themselves the lowest members of the capitalist system. When legal slavery is over, many freed people fully expect to gain ownership of the land they have been working on.
African Americans in the United States face severe discrimination, and are retained as different racial groups by laws against "miscegenation". Perceived as a threat to society, and especially as a dangerous influence on slaves, free Negroes are not welcome in most parts of the United States. Before the Civil War, most blacks were free to live in the North, who had abolished slavery. In some places they gain substantial real estate.
In the South, the vagrancy laws have allowed nations to force free negroes into labor, and sometimes sell them into slavery. However, independent Africans across the country do various jobs, and a small number of farms are owned and operated successfully. Others settled in Southern Ontario and Nova Scotia, a possible endpoint of the Underground Railroad.
White abolitionists disagree about how the liberated person should be treated. While some proponents of a full redistribution of land, others do not support this type of racial mixing. Plans for a colony began in 1801 when James Monroe asked President Thomas Jefferson to help create a colony of punishment for rebel blacks. The American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 to address the problem of free African Americans through resettlement abroad. By 1860, the ACS had placed thousands of Africans in Liberia. But colonization is slow and unattractive to many, and when mass emancipation looms there is no clear understanding of what might happen to the millions of blacks who will soon be free. This problem has long been known by the white authorities as "The Negro Problem".
The idea of ​​a land grant for the whole class of people is not so unusual in the 1700s and 1800s as seen today. For example, Thomas Jefferson proposed a 50 acre grant for every free man who did not have at least 50 acres in his revolutionary constitution draft for Virginia in 1776. Moreover, Homestead Acts were passed 1862-1916, awarding 160-640 acres (quarter to section complete), depending on the action, and the initial annexation took place under legislation such as the Preemption Act of 1841. Freedmen were generally not eligible to homiliading, as they were not citizens, which changed with the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, when they are granted citizenship.
Maps Forty acres and a mule
War
When the Northern Army began to seize property in its war with the South, Congress passed the Seizure Act of 1861. This law allowed the military to seize property of rebels, including land and slaves. In fact, it reflects the rapidly evolving reality of the black refugee camps that have sprung up around the Union Armed Forces. This striking manifestation of this "Negroid Problem" sparked hostility from many rank-and-file Union - and required administration by officers.
Grand Contraband Camp
After the secession, Union retained control of Fort Monroe at Hampton on the coast of Southern Virginia. Escaped escaped hurrying into the area, hoping for protection from the Confederate Army. (Even faster, the city's white citizens fled to Richmond.) General Benjamin Butler set a precedent for Union forces on May 24, 1861, when he refused to hand over slaves who fled to the Confederate claiming ownership. Butler declared the slave a contraband of war and let them stay with the Union Army. In July 1861, there were 300 "smuggled" slaves working for rations at Fort Monroe. By the end of July there were 900, and General Butler appointed Edward L. Pierce as a Negro Commissioner.
Confederate invaders under General John B. Magruder burned the nearest town of Hampton, Virginia on August 7, 1861, but blacks of "smuggled" occupied the ruins. They set up a slum town known as the Grand Camp Contraband. Many work for the Army at a rate of $ 10.00/month, but this wage is not enough for them to make major improvements in housing. Conditions at Camp are worsening, and Northern humanitarian groups are trying to intervene on behalf of 64,000 residents. Captain C. B. Wilder was appointed to organize the response. The perceived humanitarian crisis may have accelerated Lincoln's plan to colonize ÃÆ'Žle-ÃÆ' -Vache.
A plan developed in September 1862 will move the refugees en masse to Massachusetts and other northern countries. This plan - initiated by John A. Dix and supported by Captain Wilder and Stanton War Secretary - drew a negative reaction from Republicans who wanted to avoid linking black migrations to the north with the newly announced Emancipation Proclamation. Fear of competition by black workers, as well as common racial prejudices, makes the prospect of black refugees unpleasant for Massachusetts politicians.
With the support of orders from General Rufus Saxton, General Butler and Captain Wilder pursued a local resettlement operation, providing many blacks in Hampton with two acres of land and equipment for work. Others are assigned jobs as maids in the North. Smaller camps and colonies were formed, including the Freedmen Colony on Roanoke Island. Hampton is known as one of War's first and largest refugee camps, and serves as a kind of model for other settlements.
Sea Islands
Union Army occupied the Sea Islands after the Battle of Port Royal 1861, leaving many cotton plantations to the black farmers working on them. The early liberation of the Pulau Laut blacks, and the relatively unusual absence of former white teachers, raised the issue of how the South might be governed after the fall of slavery. Lincoln, comments State Department official Adam Gurowski, "is afraid of success in South Carolina, because he thinks this success will complicate the problem of slavery." In the early days of the federal occupation, very bad troops treated the islanders, and had invaded the supply of food crops and clothing. A Union officer was arrested to secretly transport a group of blacks to Cuba, to sell him as a slave. Violations by Union forces continued even after a stable regime was established.
Finance Minister Salmon P. Chase in December mobilized Colonel William H. Reynolds to collect and sell whatever cotton could be seized from the Pulau Laut plantation. Soon after, Chase deploys Edward Pierce (after a brief period at Grand Contraband Camp) to assess the situation at Port Royal. Pierce found an estate under the army's tight control, paying wages too low to allow economic independence; he also criticized the military policy of sending North cotton to be ginned. Pierce reports that black workers are experts in cotton farming but require white managers "to uphold father's discipline". He recommended the formation of supervised black peasant groups to prepare workers for civic responsibilities - and to serve as a model for post-slavery bondage relationships in the South.
The Treasury is trying to raise money and in many cases has already leased occupied territories to North capitalists for private management. For Port Royal Colonel Thomas has prepared this type of arrangement; but Pierce insists that Port Royal offers an opportunity to "solve big social questions": that is, "when properly set, and with the right motive in front of them, [black] will be like free men who are diligent like men's races, the man who might be in this climate. "Chase sent Pierce to meet President Lincoln. As Pierce later described the meeting:
Mr. Lincoln, who was then shaken under grief, listened for a moment, and then said, somewhat impatiently, that he did not think that he should be bothered with such details, that there seemed to be an itch to get the negro into the line we; I replied that these niggers were in them with the invitation of no one, who lived there before we started work. The President then wrote and gave me the following cards:
I will be obliged if the Minister of Finance will in its wisdom instruct Mr. Pierce in connection with Port Royal stuff that might seem wise. A. LINCOLN.
Pierce accepted this reluctant mandate, but feared that "some unhappy compromise" might jeopardize his plans to engineer blacks.
Port Royal Experiment
This collective was founded and is known as the Royal Port Experiment: a possible model for black economic activity after slavery. The experiment drew support from Northern people like economist Edward Atkinson, who hoped to prove his theory that free labor would be more productive than forced labor. A more traditional abolitionist like Mary Weston Chapman also praised Pierce's plans. Civil groups such as the American Missionary Association provide enthusiastic assistance. These sympathetic northerners quickly recruited shiploads (53 selected from a bunch of applicants several times larger) than the Ivy League and graduates of the divine school who left for Port Royal on March 3, 1862.
Residents of Port Royal generally hate military and civilian invaders, who show racist superiority in varying degrees of darkness. Joy - when on April 13, 1862, General David Hunter proclaimed slavery removed in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama - turned into grief when on May 12, the Union soldiers arrived to compose all able-bodied black men who were released. Hunter retained his regiment even after Lincoln overturned this tri-state emancipation of proclamation; but dissolved almost all of it when not being able to withdraw salaries from the War Department. Black farmers prefer to grow vegetables and catch fish, whereas missionaries (and other whites on the islands) encourage monoculture of cotton as a commercial crop. In the latter mind, civilization will advance by bringing blacks into a consumer economy dominated by Northern manufacturing.
Meanwhile, conflicts arose among the missionaries, the Army, and the merchants whom Chase and Reynolds had been invited to Port Royal to confiscate everything that could be sold. However, on balance, the white sponsors of the Experiment have felt positive results; The businessman John Murray Forbes in May 1862 called it "a decided success", announcing that blacks would indeed work in return for wages.
War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton appointed General Rufus Saxton as Port Royal military governor in April 1862, and in December, Saxton agitated permanent black control over the land. He won support from Stanton, Chase, Sumner, and President Lincoln, but met the continuing refusal of a tax commission that wanted to sell the land. Saxton also received approval to train black militia, officially becoming the 1st South Carolina Volunteer on 1 January 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation legalized its existence.
Land ownership in the Sea Islands
Like elsewhere, black workers feel strongly that they have a claim on the land where they work.
The Foreclosure Act of 1862 enabled the Treasury to sell a lot of land that was caught on the basis of taxes in arrears. All told, the government now claims 76,775 hectares of Pulau Laut land. The auditor arrived at Port Royal and began assessing the area now occupied by blacks and missionaries. The stakes are high: Sea Island's cotton harvest represents a lucrative commodity for Northern investors to control.
Most of the whites involved in the project felt that the ownership of the black land should be the end result. Saxton - along with journalists including James G. Thompson's Free Editor, and missionaries including Methodist minister Mansfield French - lobbied hard to distribute the land to black owners. In January 1863, Saxton unilaterally suspended the Treasury's tax sales on the basis of military necessity.
Tax commissaries conduct auctions regardless, selling ten thousand hectares of land. Eleven estates went to the consortium ("The Boston Concern") headed by Edward Philbrick, who sold the land in 1865 to a black farmer. A collective of black farms beats outside investors, paying an average of $ 7.00 per acre for 470 plantations where they already live and work. Overall, most of the land is sold to North investors and remains under their control.
In September 1863, Lincoln announced plans to auction off 60,000 acres of South Carolina land in many 320 acres - setting aside 16,000 acres of land for the "head of the family of African races", which could earn 20 acres of much sold at $ 1.25/acre. Tax Commissioner William Brisbane envisioned racial integration on the islands, with large planters hiring blacks without land. But Saxons and French consider the 16,000-acre reserve insufficient, and instruct black families on stake claims and build homes on 60,000 hectares of land. France traveled to Washington in December 1863 to lobby for legal confirmation of the plan. At the urging of France, Chase and Lincoln authorized the Sea Island families (and the wives of soldiers in the Union Army) to claim a 40-acre plot. Other people over the age of 21 will be allowed to claim 20 hectares. This plot will be purchased for $ 1.25 per acre, with 40% prepayment and 60% paid later. With the previous six-month residency requirement, the order functionally limits the settlement for blacks, missionaries, and others already involved in the Experiment.
Claims for landing under a new plan are starting to arrive soon, but Brisbane Commissioners ignore them, hoping for another reversal of the decision in Washington. Chase did reverse his position in February, recovering plans for tax sales. Sales were made in late February, with land sales at an average price of more than $ 11/acre. The sale provoked protests from free people who had claimed the land according to Chase's orders in December.
Negroes of Savannah "
Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman "March to the Sea" brought the Union Army's massive regiment to the coast of Georgia in December 1864. Accompanying the Army was estimated at about ten thousand blacks, former slaves. This group has suffered from hunger and disease. Many former slaves became disillusioned by the Union Armed Forces, after looting, rape, and other offenses. They arrive in Savannah "after a long march and the privacy is severe, tired, hungry, sick, and almost naked.Soon December, Sherman sent many of these slaves to Hilton Head, an island that has served as a refugee camp. December 22 "Every cabin and house on these islands is overflowing - I have about 15,000." More 700 arrived at Christmas.
On January 11, 1865, War Secretary Edwin Stanton arrived in Savannah with Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs and other officials. The group meets with General Sherman and Saxton to discuss the refugee crisis. They decide, in turn, to consult with the leaders of the local Black community and ask them: "What do you want for your own people?" A meeting is set up.
At 8:00 pm on January 12, 1865, Sherman met a group of twenty men, many of whom had been slaves for most of their lives. The blacks of Savannah have taken advantage of emancipation opportunities to strengthen their community institutions, and they have strong political feelings. They chose a spokesperson: Garrison Frazier, a former Thais African pastor 67 years old. In the late 1850s, he bought $ 1,000 for himself and his wife. Frazier has consulted with refugees and other representatives. He told Sherman: "The best way we can take care of ourselves is to own the land, and change it and work it out with our own work." Frazier suggested that youth would serve the government in the fight against Rebels, and therefore "women and children and parents" should work on this land. Almost everyone present agreed to request a land grant for an autonomous black community, arguing that racial hatred would prevent economic progress for blacks in mixed areas.
Sherman Special Order Order, No. 15
Sherman Field Special Order, No. 15, issued on January 16, 1865, instructed officers to complete these refugees in the Sea Islands and the mainland: 400,000 acres total divided into 40 hectares plots. Although donkeys (burden animals used for plowing) are not mentioned, some of its beneficiaries receive them from the army. Such plots are known everyday as "Blackacres", which may have grounds for their origin in contract law.
The Sherman order specifically allocates "the islands of Charleston, the south, the rice fields left along the river for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River, Florida." The order specifically forbids white people from settling in this area. Saxton, who, along with Stanton, helped create the document, was promoted to Major General and accused of overseeing new settlements. On February 3, Saxton addressed a large gathering of free people in the Second African Baptist, announcing the order and outlining preparations for new settlements. In June 1865, some 40,000 people released were living in 435,000 hectares (180,000 ha) in the Sea Islands.
Special Field Orders were issued by Sherman, not the federal government with regard to all former slaves, and he issued similar "across campaigns to ensure harmonization of actions in the area of ​​operations." Sherman himself later said that the settlement was never meant to survive. However, this was never an understanding of the settlers - or General Saxton, who said he asked Sherman to cancel the order unless it was meant to be permanent.
In practice, the parcels of land completed are quite varied. James Chaplin Beecher observes that "so-called 40 acre tract [s] varies in size from eight acres to (450) four hundred and fifty." Several areas were completed by groups: Skidaway Island was colonized by a group of over 1000 people, including Reverend Ulysses L. Houston.
Significance
The Sea Islands project reflects the policy of "40 hectares and mules" as the basis of the post-slavery economy. Especially in 1865, the precedents set were visible to new blacks who were free to seek their own land. People are free from all over the region flocking to the area to search for land. The result is a refugee camp suffering from illness and supply shortages.
Especially after the Sherman Order, coastal settlements evoke enthusiasm for the new society that will replace the slavery system. Reported by a journalist in April 1865: "The Plymouth colony repeats itself, they agree that if anyone else comes to join them, they should have the same rights, so bloom the Mayflower on the South Atlantic Coast."
Wage system
Beginning in Louisiana occupied under General Nathaniel P. Banks, the military developed a wage-labor system to cultivate vast lands. This system - which prevailed with the blessings of Lincoln and Stanton as soon as the Emancipation Proclamation legitimized the contract with free men - offered a full year contract to free men. The contract promises $ 10/month as well as medical provisions and treatments. The system was soon adopted by General Lorenzo Thomas in Mississippi.
Sometimes the land is under the control of a Treasury official. Jurisdiction disputes erupted between the Ministry of Finance and the military. Critics of the Treasury who took advantage by General John Eaton and journalists who witnessed a new form of plantation worker affect public opinion in the North and suppress Congress to support direct control over land by liberated people. The Treasury Department, especially when Secretary Chase prepared to seek Republican nominations in 1864, accused the military of treating the inhumanly liberated people. Lincoln decided to support military jurisdiction rather than Treasury, and the wage system became more established. Abolitionist critics of the policy call it no better than slavery.
Davis Bound
One of the largest blackholder projects took place in Davis Bend, Mississippi, Joseph Davis's 11,000 acre estate and his famous brother, Jefferson, president of the Confederation. Influenced by several aspects of Robert Owen's socialism, Joseph Davis founded the Hurricane 4000 Acre Plantation in 1827 at Davis Bend. Davis allowed several hundred slaves to eat nutritious meals, lived in well-built cottages, received medical treatment, and settled their disputes in the weekly "Hall of Justice" court. His motto is: "The less people are organized, the more obediently they will control." Davis relies heavily on managerial skills Ben Montgomery, an educated slave who does a lot of plantation business.
The Battle of Shiloh began a period of turmoil (1862-1863), at Davis Bend, although his blacks continued to farm. The plantation was occupied by two black Union troops in December 1863. Under Colonel Samuel Thomas's command, these soldiers began to fortify the area. General Ulysses S. Grant has expressed a desire to make Davis plantations a "negro paradise." Thomas began renting the land to black tenants for the 1864 planting season. The blacks who had gathered in Vicksburg moved massively to Davis Bend under the auspices of the Freedman Department (an agency created by the military before the congressional authorization of the " Bureau of Freedmen ", discussed below).
Davis Bend was caught in the midst of a grass war between the military and the Treasury. In February 1864, the Treasury deprived 2,000 hectares of the Davis Dam, returning it to a white owner who has sworn allegiance allegiance. It also leases 1,200 hectares for North investors. Though Thomas refused instructions to keep blacks free from farming, General Eaton ordered him to obey. Eaton also ordered Thomas to confiscate farm equipment held by blacks, on the grounds that - because Mississippi law prohibits slaves from owning property - they must have stolen the goods. The Ministry of Finance is trying to charge the plantation workers to use cotton gin. The inhabitants of Davis Bend strongly opposed these steps. In a petition signed by 56 farmers (including Montgomery) and published in New Orleans Tribune :
At the beginning of our current year, this plantation, in accordance with the command of our Postal Commander, seized from horses, mules, cattle and farm equipment from every description, is very much that has been captured and brought into the Union line by the undersigned; as a result of deprivation, we are, of course, reduced to the need to buy everything necessary for agriculture, and so far have managed to do the most expensive and exhausting part of our work, we are ready to achieve ginning, suppressing, weighing, marking, consolidate, etc., in a business order if permitted to do so.
Freedmen Bureau
From 1863-1865, Congress debated what policies might be adopted to address the social problems that the South would face after the war. The Freedmen's Aid Society encouraged the "Emancipation Bureau" to assist in the economic transition from slavery. It used Port Royal as proof that blacks can live and work on their own. Land reform is often discussed, although some objections that too much capital will be needed to ensure the success of black farmers. On January 31, 1865, the House of Representatives approved the 13th Amendment, which prohibited slavery and forced servitude except in cases of punishment.
Congress continues to debate the economic and social status of the free population, with land reforms identified as essential to realizing black liberties. A bill is drafted on a conference committee to grant limited landholdings for one year while authorizing military oversight of the liberated person is rejected in the Senate by an abolitionist who thinks it does not do justice to the freed person. A six-person committee quickly wrote "an entirely new bill" that substantially increased its promise to the liberated.
A stronger version of the bill passed the two houses on March 3, 1865. With this bill, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Land under the War Department. The Bureau has the authority to provide supplies to refugees - and unfunded mandates to distribute land, in packages of up to 40 hectares:
Seconds. 4. And subsequently put into effect, That the commissioner, under the direction of the President, will have the authority to separate, for the use of faithful and liberated refugees, such land treaties in insurrectionary countries as will be abandoned, or in which the United States shall obtain the right by seizure or sale, or vice versa, and for every male citizen, whether refugees or free persons, as mentioned before, shall be established no more than forty hectares of such land. , and the person assigned to it shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the land for a period of three years with an annual lease not exceeding six per cent of the value of the land, as assessed by the state authorities in the eight hundred and sixty years, for tax purposes, and in the case of non- there is such a valuation can be found, then the rent is based on the estimated value of the land in the year, to be ensured in such a way. the commissioner may with regulati on prescription. At the end of that period, or at any time during that period, the passengers of each assigned parcel may purchase the land and receive such title as may be delivered by the United States, after paying there for the value of the land, as determined and determined for the purpose of determining the annual rent above.
Thus the bill establishes a system in which Southern blacks can lease abandoned and confiscated land, with an annual rent of 6% (or less) of the land value (assessed for tax purposes in 1860). After three years, they will have the option to buy this land for the full price. The responsible bureau, known as the Freedmen Bureau, is placed under continuous military surveillance as Congress anticipates the need to defend the black settlement of White Sourherer. The bill implicitly rejects Lincoln's plans and the other to colonize blacks abroad, or even in separate US territories - his mandate will institutionalize the ownership of black land on the same land that previously relied on unpaid labor.
When Andrew Johnson became president after the Lincoln assassination, he took aggressive steps to return the Union. On May 29, 1865, Johnson issued a proclamation of amnesty to ordinary South Africans who swore allegiance, promising not only political immunity but also the return of confiscated property. (The Johnson Proclamation excludes Confederate politicians, army officers and landowners with properties worth over $ 20,000.) General O. Howard, head of the Freedmen Bureau, requested an interpretation from Attorney General James Speed ​​on how this statement will affect mandate of the Freedmen Bureau. Speed ​​replied on June 22, 1865 that the Bureau Commissioner:
... has an authority , under the direction of the President, to separate the use of faithful refugees and liberate the land in question; and he shall be assigned to every man of that class of man, no more than forty acres of such land.
Circular # 13
Howard acted swiftly on the basis of authorization from Speed, ordering an inventory of available land for redistribution and refusing the White men's efforts to reclaim property. At its peak in 1865, the Freedmen Bureau controlled 800,000-900,000 hectares of plantation land previously owned by slave owners. This area represents 0.2% of the mainland in the South; Johnson's proclamation finally required the Bureau to allocate most of its former owners.
On July 28, 1865, Howard issued "Circular No. 13", instructions within the Freedmen Bureau to issue land to refugees and free men. No circle 13 explicitly instructs Bureau agencies to prioritize Congressional credentials for land distribution over Johnson's amnesty declaration. The latter clarify: "The President's pardon will not be understood to extend the surrender of abandoned or confiscated property which by law has been" established for Refugees and Freedmen. "By Circulation # 13, land redistribution is the official policy for the whole of the South, and understood by officers military.
After issuing Circular 13, however, Howard, who apparently did not realize how significant and controversial his guidance might prove, left Washington for a vacation in Maine. President Johnson and others began to fend off the Broadcast immediately. After Johnson ordered the Bureau to return the plantation of the complaining Tennessee planter, General Joseph S. Fullerton suggested to at least one subordinate that Circular # 13 "would not be observed for now".
When Howard returned to Washington, Johnson ordered him to write a new Circular that would respect his land restoration policy. Johnson rejected Howard's design and wrote his own version, which he issued on Sept. 12 as Circular # 15 - including Howard's name. Circular # 15 sets strict criteria for designating a property as "officially confiscated" and has effects in many places to end land redistribution completely.
Particularly during the six-week period between Circular # 13 and Circular # 15, '40 acre and a mule '(along with other supplies necessary for agriculture) represent the general pledge of agents of the Freedmen Bureau. Clinton B. Fisk, Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen Bureau for Kentucky and Tennessee, has announced at a black political meeting: "They not only have freedom but their own homes, thirty or forty acres, with donkeys, huts, and school houses etc."
A Bureau administrator in Virginia proposed renting to each family a 40-acre plot of land, a pair of donkeys, a suit of armor, carts, equipment, seeds, and food supplies. The family will pay for these supplies after planting the crops and selling them.
Black Code
Bureau agencies encountered legal issues in allocating land to free people as a result of the "Black Codes" passed by the Southern legislature in late 1865 and 1866. Several new laws prevented blacks from owning or renting soil. The Freedmen Bureau generally treats the Black Code as invalid, under federal law. However, the Bureau was not always able to enforce its interpretation after the Armed Forces were substantially demobilized.
Colonization and homesteading
During and after the war, politicians, generals and others envisioned various colonization plans that would provide real estate for black families. Although the American Colonization Society has colonized more people in Liberia and received more donations (nearly a million dollars in the 1850s), it lacked the means to respond to mass emancipation.
Foreign colonization plan
Lincoln has long supported colonization as a sensible solution to the problem of slavery, and pursued a colonization plan throughout his presidency. In 1862, Congress approved $ 600,000 to fund Lincoln's plan to colonize blacks "in a pleasant climate for them", and gave Lincoln a vast executive force to govern the colonization. Lincoln immediately made the Emigration Office within the Ministry of Home Affairs and ordered the State Department to obtain suitable land. The first major plan under consideration would be to send free blacks employed as coal miners in ChiriquÃÆ', Panama (then part of Gran Colombia). Volunteers are promised 40 hectares of land and work in the mine; Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy, who Lincoln appointed to oversee his plans, also bought donkeys, yokes, tools, carts, grains, and other equipment to support the potential colony. Pomeroy received 500 of the 13,700 people applying for the job. However, the plan was canceled at the end of the year - as it may be for Latin American and British opposition, or the discovery that ChiriquÃÆ'â "¢ coal has poor quality.
Like Liberia, an independent, black country, Haiti is also considered a good place to colonize free people from the United States. When Chiriqu's plan was at its peak in 1862, Lincoln was developing another plan to colonize the small island ÃÆ'Žle ÃÆ' Vache near Haiti. Lincoln made a deal with businessman Bernard Kock, who has gained the right to lease the island for cultivation and logging. 453 Blacks, mostly young men from the Tidewater area around Hampton, Virginia, who was assigned to colonize the island. On April 14, 1863, they left Fort Monroe at the "Ocean Ranger". Kock confiscates all the money the colonists have and does not pay their wages. Initial reports suggested terrible conditions, though this was then debated. A number of colonists died in the first year. 292 survivors of the original group remained on the island and 73 had moved to Aux Cayes; largely restored to the US by a Navy mission in February 1864. The Congress overturned Lincoln's colonization authority in July 1863.
Lincoln continued to pursue colonial plans, particularly in the West Indies of England, but nothing worked. The American Colonization Society completed several hundred people in Liberia during the war, and several thousand others in the next five years.
Domestic work plan
Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest had proposed in 1865 before the end of the war to hire black soldiers and freedmen in building railroads for Memphis and the Small Railway Company, paying them for $ 1/day and landing along the railroad. This proposal then received support from Sherman, Howard, Johnson, and Arkansas Governor Isaac Murphy. Howard sent several hundred free men from Alabama to Arkansas to work on the phone. He appoints Edward Ord to oversee the project and protect those freed from Forrest.
Southern Rural Law
When it became clear that the pool of available land for blacks was rapidly shrinking, the Society discussed various proposals for how blacks might resettle and eventually own their own land. In Virginia, the masses of landless blacks represent a growing crisis - soon to be exacerbated by the return of 10,000 black troops from Texas. Concerned about the possibility of the uprising, Colonel Orlando Brown (head of the Freedmen Bureau in Virginia) proposes to relocate Virginia blacks to Texas or Florida. Brown proposed that the federal government reserve 500,000 hectares in Florida for colonization by soldiers and 50,000 other free blacks from Virginia. Howard takes Brown's proposal to Congress.
In December 1865, Congress began debating the "Second Freedmen Bureau Bill", which would open three million acres of uninhabited public land in Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas to homiliading. (An amendment to allow the removal of blacks on public lands in the North was defeated.) Congress passed the bill in February 1866 but could not rule out Johnson's veto. (Congress passed the more restricted "Bureau of Freedom Bureau" in July 1866, and ruled out Johnson's veto.)
Howard continues to push Congress to land that is suitable for allocation to the liberated. With support from Thaddeus Stevens and William Fessenden, Congress began debating a new draft for public land settlements in the South. The result was the Southern Homestead Act, which opened 46,398,544.87 hectares of land in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas to homestimate; originally an 80-acre (half-quarter) package until June 1868, and then 160-acre parcels (quarter share). Johnson signed this bill and it came into force on June 21, 1866. Until January 1, 1867, the bill is determined, only free blacks and loyal whites will be allowed access to this land.
Howard, concerned about the competition with the Confederacy which began in 1867, ordered the Bureau's agents to inform free blacks of the Law on Rebellion. The local commissioner does not disseminate information widely, and many free people do not want to venture into unfamiliar territory, with insufficient supply, only on the promise of land after five years.
Those who try to homesteading face an unreliable bureaucracy that is often incompatible with federal law. They also face very harsh conditions, usually in low-quality lands that have been rejected by white settlers in previous years. Nevertheless, free blacks entered about 6,500 claims to the guesthouse; about 1000 of these end up generating a property certificate.
Results
Southern landowners regained control of virtually all the land they claimed before the war. National dialogue on land ownership as the key to success for free people gives way (in political and white media) to the implementation of plantation wage system. Under pressure from Johnson and other pro-capitalist politicians in the North, and from almost all white communities in the South, the Freedmen Bureau changed from a protector of land rights to laborer wage enforcement.
Hope and hope
Free blacks in the South widely believe that all the land will be redistributed to those who have done it. They also feel strongly that they have the right to own this land. Many suspect that this event will take place on Christmas 1865 or New Year 1866 Though people are free to mold this belief in response to the Freedman and Circular Bureau # 13 policy, their hope is immediately attenuated as a superstition similar to belief in Santa Claus.
Expectations for "40 acres and donkeys" in particular were a common beginning in early 1865. Expectations for "40 acres" came from the explicit terms of the Sherman Field Order and the Freedmen's Bureau bureau. The "mule" may have been added only as a clear need to achieve prosperity through agriculture. ("Forty acres" is a slogan, which although often appears in formal declarations, represents different arrangements for land and agricultural ownership.)
A counter-rumor spread among Southern white people that when the land was not redistributed at Christmas, angry blacks would launch a cruel revolt. Alabama and Mississippi passed legislation forming the White paramilitary group, which ruthlessly disarmed free blacks.
Wages wage
The landowners in the south complained that they were waiting for the land, the new free blacks would not be ready to sign long-term employment contracts. The Governor of South Carolina James Lawrence Orr asked Johnson in 1866 to continue pushing his land policy, writing that "complete restoration will restore complete harmony".
The black hope of land will be seen as a major barrier to economic productivity, and the forces of the South and North work hard to drive them out. The South Government issued a "Black Code" to prevent blacks owning or leasing land, and to restrict their freedom of movement. Freedmen Agency agents now tell blacks that redistribution is impossible and that they need to do wage work to survive. If they can not persuade people to sign a contract, they will force by force. Thomas Conway, Commissioner of the Bureau in Louisiana, ordered: "Cut them out! Cut the wood! Do whatever it takes to avoid the state of laziness." Even Rufus Saxton, actively campaigning for black properties in the Sea Islands, issued a circular instructing his agent to remove rumors of redistribution in the New Year of 1866. (The unfunded bureau withdraws its own finances from the profits generated by free men which is bound by contract.) Although some white people continue to press for colonization, most now believe that black labor can be recovered through the wage system.
According to many historians, economic negotiations between blacks and whites in the South are thus revealed in the parameters prescribed by the Johnson administration. The owners of the southern plantations encouraged blacks toward slavery, while the Republican Congress encouraged free labor and civil rights. Finally, under this framework, the division of results appears as a dominant mode of production. Some historians, such as Robert McKenzie, have challenged the prevalence of this "standard scenario" and argue that land ownership fluctuated significantly during the 1870s. ownership of black land increased in the South.
Tidewater Virginia
Many blacks who settled on properties around Hampton were forced to go in various ways. These include Johnson's aggressive restoration policies, Black Codes passed by the Virginia legislature, and with vigilante enforcement by returning the Confederation. Union troops also forced the forced settlers, sometimes triggering a violent impasse; many blacks who trust the Freedmen Bureau do little more than they do to Rebels. In 1866, Tidewater refugee camps were still full, and many of their residents were sick and dying. Relations with the white North and South have become very hostile. White people (military invaders and local residents) approve of a plan to deport the freedmen back to their hometown.
After the turbulence of restoration, land ownership continues to increase. Hampton already has at least several black landowners, such as the American Revolutionary War veteran family of Caesar Tarrant. In 1860, about eight niggers were free to own land at Hampton. In 1870, approximately 121 Blacks land was owned free of charge in the area. Those who owned the prewar land expanded their holdings.
Some blacks in Hampton formed a community land trust called the Lincon Land Association and bought several hundred acres of land around it. The land for the Hampton Institute (then Hampton University), was obtained from 1867-1872 with the help of George Whipple of the American Missionary Association. Whipple also helps sell 44 individual lots to black owners.
Many free people can not afford land immediately after the war, but earn money in off-farm work such as fishing and oysters. The ownership of black land thus increased more rapidly (though not for everyone) during the 1870s. In Charles City County, three quarters of black agricultural workers have their own fields, with an average size of 36 hectares. In York County, 50% owned their farm, which averages 20 hectares. (Statedwide, the number of landowners is high, but the average size of the land is only 4 hectares.) This relatively small farm, on relatively poor soil, does not generate huge profits. However, they are indeed a base of economic power, and blacks from this region hold political positions at a high level.
The survivors of the camps also achieved high levels of land ownership and business success in the city of Hampton itself.
Sea Islands
The May 29 amnesty announcement does not apply to many landowners of the Sea Islands; However, most of them have received special pardon directly from Johnson. General Rufus Saxton was overwhelmed by claims of ownership of property in "Sherman Reserve". Saxton wrote to Howard on September 5, 1865, asking him to protect the ownership of black land in the Sea Islands:
General, I had the privilege of reporting that the old owners of land in the Sea Islands, tried hard to regain their holdings. These islands are separated for the colonization of the liberated, by General Sherman Special Field Order no. 15: Military Headquarters of the Mississippi Division: In accordance with this Order, issued as military necessity, with the full consent and sanction of the Honorable Secretary of War, I, as you already know, have colonized about forty (40) thousand Freedmen, in forty (40) acre Tracts. promising them that they must have the same promenade.
I consider that the faith of the Government sincerely promises to these people, who have been faithful to him. and that we have no right now to expel them from their land.
I believe that Congress will decide that the Genl Sherman Order has all the binding effects of the Statute, and that Mr. Stanton will support you not to surrender this land to its late owner.
I respectfully request that this Order that I have done in good faith, Will now be enforced, and that no part or parcel of the land that has been disposed of under the just provisions shall, under any circumstances, be returned to the owner. For me, it is unwise or wise to do injustice to those who are always faithful and true, to be lenient toward those who have done their best to destroy the life of the nation.
No circle 15, issued a few days later, led the previous landowner to step up their efforts. Saxton continued to refuse, addressing their written request to Howard with the commentary:
The liberated people are promised Government protection they have. This order was issued under a large military need with the approval of the War Department. I was appointed as an executive officer to carry it out. More than forty thousand free free people have been given houses under their promises. I can not break faith with them now by recommending the restoration of these lands. In my opinion, General Sherman's order is as binding as the law.
Johnson sent Howard to the Islands, with instructions to mediate the "mutually satisfying" settlement. Howard understood that this implies a full recovery of pre-war ownership. He told the islanders about Johnson's intentions. But (with the support of Stanton, who feels comfortable with the literal interpretation of the phrase "mutually satisfying") appoints sympathetic Captain Alexander P. Ketchum, to set up a commission to oversee the transition. Ketchum and Saxton went on to reject the claims of resettlement by the Confederate white.
The settlers formed a network of solidarity to deny their land reclamation, and proved willing to defend their homes by displaying strong forces. The Sea Island homesteaders also wrote directly to Howard and Johnson, insisting that the government keep his promise and keep their homes.
However, prevailing political winds continue to benefit South landowners. Saxton and Ketchum lost their positions; Daniel Sickles and Robert K. Scott took power. In the winter of 1866-1867, Sickles transformed the Union Armed Forces to the settlers, expelling all who could not produce the right deed. The black settlers retain control over 1,565 titles of 63,000 hectares. Scott recounts in his report to Congress: "The officers of this detachment in many instances took away from the freedmen of their certificates, declared them worthless, and destroyed them in their presence.After refusing to accept the contracts offered, the people in some instances pushed out to the highway, where, because without shelter, many are killed by smallpox, which endures to an alarming extent between them. "
The army continued to evict the settlers and enforce the employment agreement, which led in 1867 to a large armed stalemate between the Army and a group of peasants who would not renew their contract with the plantation owner. General Davis Tillson in Georgia ordered a modification to the title of the black landowner "to give a man who holds one, not forty acres, but as much as possible the land he can work well, say from ten to fifteen acres - and that the balance the land should be left to Gentlemen Scuyler and Winchester, who should be allowed to hire the remaining free people who want to work for them [...] ". 90% of the land on Skidaway Island was confiscated.
(Second) The Second Freedman Bureau Bill, adopted in July 1866 of Johnson's veto, provides that free persons whose lands have been restored to the owners of the Confederacy may pay $ 1.25 per acre to 20 acres of land in St. Louis. Luke and parish St. Helena from Beaufort County, South Carolina. The district is overseen by Major Martin R. Delaney, an abolitionist and proponent of black land holdings. Around 1,900 families with land certificates settled in Beaufort County purchased 19,040 hectares of land at relatively low tariffs.
Many people live on the islands and retain their ancestral Gullah culture. Hundreds of thousands of Gullahs live in the Sea Islands today. Their claims over land have been threatened in recent decades by developers seeking to build holiday resorts.
Davis bend
Thomas rejected their request and accused Montgomery of promoting a petition to advance his own profits. Montgomery appealed to Joseph Davis, who had returned to Mississippi in October 1865 and lived in Vicksburg.
Samuel Thomas was finally expelled from his post. Joseph Davis regained control of his estate in 1867 and immediately sold it to Benjamin Montgomery for $ 300,000. This price, $ 75 per acre, is relatively low. The transaction itself is illegal because Mississippi Black Codes prohibits the sale of property to blacks; Therefore Davis and Montgomery make transactions in secret.
Montgomery invited free blacks to finish the land and work there. In 1887, led by Benjamin's son, Isaiah Montgomery, the group established a new settlement in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Mound Bayou remains an autonomous and almost all-Black community.
Politics
Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner continue to support land reform for free men, but are opposed by a large group of politicians who do not want to violate property rights or redistribute capital.
Many radical northerners withdrew their support for land reform in the post-war years. One reason for the change in political opinion is the fear by the Republican Party that land ownership may cause blacks to align themselves with Democrats for economic reasons. In general, politicians shift their focus to the legal status of the liberated person. In the analysis of W. E. B. Du Bois, black suffrage became more politically appropriate, appropriate as an inexpensive alternative to well-funded agrarian reform.
Legacy
By the 1870s, blacks had left the hope of a redistribution of federal land, but many still saw the "forty acres and mules" as the key to freedom. black land holdings in the South are rising steadily despite the failure of federal reconstruction. A quarter of black farmers in the South had their land in 1900. Near the coast, they had an average of 27 hectares; inland, on average 48 hectares. By comparison, 63% of South white farmers own their land. Much of this land is purchased only through private transactions.
In 1910, American blacks owned 15,000,000 acres of land, mostly in Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This number has since declined to 5,500,000 hectares in 1980 and 2,000,000 acres in 1997. Most of this land was not a region held by a black family in 1910; outside the "Black Belt", it is located in Texas, Oklahoma, and California. The total number of Black farmers has declined from 925,708 in 1920 to 18,000 in 1997; the number of white farmers also declined, but much slower. US ownership of black land has been reduced more than other ethnic groups, while white land ownership has increased. black families who inherit land across generations without obtaining explicit titles (often resulting in multiple rents) may have difficulty obtaining government benefits and risk losing their land completely. Fraud and overt expulsion have also been used to expose blacks on their land.
Black landowners are a common target of prominent domain laws that are required to pave the way for public works projects. At Harris Neck in the Sea Islands, a group of Gullah-free people retained 2,681 hectares of high-quality land due to the Will of the estate owner Marg [a] ret Ann Harris. About 100 black farmers continued to live at Harris Neck until 1942, when they were forced out of the ground due to plans to build an Air Force base. The land was freely used by local white authorities until 1962, when it was handed over to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and became the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. Land ownership is contested.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has long been seen as the cause of the decline of black agriculture. According to a 1997 report by the USDA Civil Rights Action Team itself:
There are some who call the USDA 'the last plantation.' An 'old line' department, the USDA is one of the last federal agencies that combine and perhaps the last to include women and minorities in leadership positions. Considered a stubborn and slow bureaucracy to change, the USDA is also considered to play a key role in what some people see as a conspiracy to force minorities and farmers who are socially disadvantaged from their lands through discriminatory loan practices.
A class action lawsuit accused the USDA of systematic discrimination against black farmers from 1981-1999. In Pigford v. Glickman (1999), District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman decided to support the farmers and ordered the USDA to pay the financial losses on land loss and income. However, the full compensation status for affected farmers remains unresolved.
Symbolism
The phrase "40 acres and donkeys" has become a symbol of broken promises that Reconstruction policy will offer economic justice for African Americans.
The promise of "40 acres and a mule" stands out prominently in Pigford's decision. The decision that the US Department of Agriculture has discriminated against African-American farmers, Friedman wrote: "Forty acres and a mule The government broke the promise to African American farmers More than a hundred years later, the USDA broke its promise to Mr. James. Repair
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