WHAT IS FORTY ACRES AND A MULE?
DSOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
Forty acres and a mule is part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a promise made by the United States government for agrarian reform to aid formerly enslaved black farmers.
Approved by President Abraham Lincoln, the field orders were written by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, and specifically allotted each family a plot of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha). Sherman later ordered the army to lend mules for the agrarian reform effort. The field orders followed a series of conversations between Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Radical Republican abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens following disruptions to the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War.
Many freed people believed and were told by various political figures that they had a right to own the land they had long worked as slaves, and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war, long after proclamations such as Special Field Orders No. 15 and the Freedmen’s Bureau Act were explicitly reversed by Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson.
Some land redistribution occurred under military jurisdiction during the war and for a brief period thereafter. However, federal and state policy during the Reconstruction era emphasized wage labor, not land ownership, for blacks. Almost all land allocated during the war was restored to its pre-war white owners. Several black communities did maintain control of their land, and some families obtained new land by homesteading.
Black land ownership increased markedly in Mississippi during the 19th century, particularly. The state had much undeveloped bottomland behind riverfront areas that had been cultivated before the war. Most blacks acquired land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at 15,000,000 acres (6,100,000 ha) in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of property for many.
After the war my great grand father got 40 acres and a mile. Went out homestead for a bit sold it for peanuts and came back.