Forty Acres and a Mule—that’s what the rumors were about. The government was giving freedmen a little piece of property and an animal to help farm it. In Mississippi those who had grown up on the plantations had limited knowledge of ways to make a living besides growing cotton. Being set free, they supposed they could plant a little cotton patch, till it, pick it, and buy enough supplies to take care of a family. (Little compared to the plantations where they’d lived and worked as slaves.)
The truth about forty acres and a mule didn’t turn out
to be what they’d heard. In 1865, General William T. Sherman issued a field
order. He and other Unionists confiscated 400,000 acres of land from
Confederate landowners in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Most of the
land was along the coast. It was to be divided into forty-acre farms and given
to former slaves. Also, he promised to give each new farmer a surplus army
mule. Debates about extending the policy throughout the South were held, but
Congress didn’t implement such a program. Moves to redistribute property never succeeded.
After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated,
President Andrew Johnson returned the land to its original owners. The broken
promise became a symbol of the unfulfilled hopes of African Americans after the
Civil War.
A few freedmen saved enough money to purchase small
plots of land, but such events were rare. Various attempts helped African Americans
acquire land. For example, the United States government established the
Freedmen’s Bureau, which helped by negotiating land sales and by providing
loans for land purchase. Another program involved homesteading.*
When freedmen acquired land through government
programs, they often settled for small or undesirable plots, not wanted by others.
For example, land in flood plains near rivers or rocky soil would be available
to those inexperienced in the possibilities of failure.
*Homesteading refers to
the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by Abraham Lincoln. (There had been other homestead
acts also.) Citizens could claim up to 160 acres of public land if they agree
to construct a home and farm the land five years.
My new novel, All Her Dreams of Love, is in the
process of being published. It contains a subplot of a family of freed slaves
living near the main characters of the story. B. K. and Bertie Barnes have
roamed from one farm to another as they tried to survive by sharecropping.
Finally, they acquire a small farm. Their situation tugs at the heartstrings of
readers.
Visit Mary Lou Cheatham's Author Page
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