By Don Valentine
“40 Acres & A Mule’’ (40 Acres) is not just a pithy retort to a mundane question. It was part of a complex post Civil war plan by the government. It was a two-pronged proposal to effect punitive retribution on the South and constructively integrate 10 million former slaves into the Union.
In the PBS documentary, “The Truth Behind 40 Acres and a Mule,” Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. explained the origin of the plan. “The abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens and other Radical Republicans had been actively advocating land redistribution to break the back of Southern slaveholders power.” Mr. Stevens suggested to General Sherman that they get the local Black leaders of the community and find out what they wanted following the war?
Twenty Black prominent members of the clergy met with them to discuss the matter. Their leader was Baptist minister Garrison Frazier, who was a former slave. Reverend Frazier was adamant that the freedman wanted land. Owning land would provide the means to be self-sufficient, and living in a Black community would provide safety. The transcripts from the meeting suggest that the leaders were concerned about lingering hatred. Reverend Frazier said, “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over …” It was agreed upon, and four days later General Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, after it was approved by President Lincoln.
Order No 15 is concisely chronicled by the historical website unitedstatesnow.org, “Under this order, the lands between Charleston and the Saint Johns River in Florida were confiscated for 30 miles (48 kilometers) inland, and broken into 40 acre (16.18 hectare) parcels. Black families were entitled to a parcel each. Subsequently, General Sherman ordered the army to loan mules to the families to work the land, leading to the widespread use of the phrase “40 acres and a mule” in the American South.”
Vice President Johnson, the former Tennessee Military Governor, was on Lincoln’s ticket to appease the Southern states. His politics sided with the Southern plantation owners. Upon President Lincoln’s demise then-President Johnson promptly repealed Sherman’s directive and returned the land to the White planters. We can only speculate what America would look like without that pivot. Black landowners with an unbridled chance to grow family wealth and political power!
