The Biggest Gotcha in U.S. History: 40 Acres + a Mule
The concept of 40 acres and a mule was born in Savannah at the Green Meldrim House.
Here’s how that went down:
The two sides of the Civil War were the Union and the Confederates. The Union, the North, answered to President Lincoln. The Confederates, the South, answered to Jefferson Davis. Both sides had plenty generals. Generals were responsible for leading battles in particular areas of the country. William Sherman was a Union general in Georgia.
The Emancipation Proclamation was supposed to free black folk, but it didn’t. Read about that here. It wasn’t no abracadabra shit. Although the Proclamation said that Confederate states had to free their human property by January 1, 1863, a lot of them refused. So Lincoln sent Union troops to raid plantations and FORCE them them to do it.
Some cities/plantations were raided before then, including New Orleans, which the Union took control of in 1862. Some cities were in 1863. Many in 1864, including Savannah. A bunch after the 13th Amendment in 1865, which basically said, “Okay, y’all gotta free them people frfr now.” Galveston, Texas wasn’t raided ’til June 19th, which is where Juneteenth comes from. And I’m sure it’s far more even after that.
After realizing the Union army wouldn’t have won the Civil War without black folk’s help, General Sherman met with 20 black ministers to discuss how to help the newly freed black folk. Most of ’em didn’t have anywhere to go after leaving the plantation. So the meeting between Sherman and these ministers was supposed to help fix that issue.
Some of the ministers that Sherman met with were born free, a few had bought their freedom, and others were enslaved til freed by Union troops. The ministers came from Savannah, Bryan County, Liberty County, the Carolinas, and one from Baltimore. Reverend Garrison Frazier, from North Carolina, spoke on behalf of black folk.
The conversation went something like this:
Sherman: How can we help black folk and how can y’all help us? 😎
Frazier: 🗣We need land.
Sherman: Among whites or by yourselves? 🤔
Frazier: By ourselves 😒
From that meeting, an agreement was made that of the 400,000-something acres of land that the Union had seized during the war, they would divide that up among the now free blacks. Problem was, Special Field Order 15 (aka 40 acres and a mule) gave away land that white folks owned but abandoned when Union troops came to town.
Sherman was burning shit down left and right (Atlanta got it real bad), so plantation owners hauled ass when they heard that the Union (aka the Yankees) was coming. After the war though, many plantation owners came back to reclaim their land. The same land Sherman told black folk they could have.
So only a few handfuls of black folk actually ended up with their 40 acres. The rest was assed out. To seal the bullshit deal, Lincoln got murked and Andrew Johnson became president. Johnson was more interested in playing pattycake with former slaveowners. So ALL them efforts to help black folk get a decent footing in this world got snatched back.
And, instead of 40 acres, we got…drumroll, please 🥁… sharecropping and black codes 😑
Now #runmemyreparations
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