“More expansively, the Freedman’s Bureau Act of March 3, 1865, pursuant to the Southern land confiscation acts of 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, had an explicit racial land redistribution provision. Again, ‘not more than 40 acres’ of land was to be provided to refugee or freedman male citizens at three years’ annual rent not exceeding 6 percent of the value of the land based on appraisal of the state tax authorities in 1860. At the end of the three years, the occupants could purchase the land and receive title. Similar provisions were included in the postwar Southern Homestead Act of 1866; freedmen were to receive land in the southern states at a price of $5 for 80 acres. Neither of these Acts were implemented on behalf of the ex-slaves with any degree of vigor given the fierce opposition of President Andrew Johnson. By the end of 1865, Johnson also had ordered the removal of former slaves from the coastal lands they had settled under the conditions of Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15. The lands ultimately were restored to the former slave owners.”

December 11, 2014

Source: William Darity, Jr. Forty Acres and a Mule in the 21st Century. Social Science Quarterly, Volume 89, No. 3, September 2008.

Written by MarcusLutherX Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with $5 for 80 acres, 13th amendment, 1865, 40 acres and a mule, Africa, African American, broken promises, civil rights, competition, Congress, crimes against humanity, ex-slaves, explicit racial land redistribution provision, Freedman’s Bureau Act, global white supremacy (racism), human rights, inhumane, institutionalized racism, land, land redistribution, law, peculiar institution, postwar, postwar Southern Homestead Act of 1866, President Andrew Johnson, race is a social and legal construct, racia caste system, racism is embedded into the DNA of American culture, reparations, slavery, slaves, Southern Homestead Act of 1866, Southern land confiscation acts, survival of the fittest, three-fifths a person