40 Acres and a Mule

With all the Travon/Zimmerman hoopla going on I thought it might be a good time for a refresher on some of America’s “darker” days leading up to the current discontent with the status quo and equal justice for all. I considered giving this thread the title “Indian Givers”, but of course that’s a different version of the same story for a different day.

While this may not be new news to many here, the story needs to be told and retold to inform those who ‘s educators forgot to include examples of how promises made or implied by leaders are easily revoked at the stroke of a pen leaving people penniless, homeless, dependent on the promise breakers and angry for generations to follow.

So, who promised newly freed slaves 40 acres and a mule and what happened to the promise?

1865 (January) Congress adopts the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish slavery.

1865 (January) After meeting with freed slaves in Savannah, Georgia - in what became known as the Savannah Colloquy - General William T. Sherman responded to their pleas for land. In January he issued his famous Field Order 15 setting aside a huge swath of abandoned land along the Georgia and South Carolina coast for black families on forty acres plots. He also said that army mules no longer in use would be offered to Black farmers. This is likely where the "Forty Acres and a Mule" legend began. Sherman never stated whether this was to be a permanent or temporary land acquisition.

But of course permanence was implied and therefore believed to be so.

1865 (March) Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) providing for the allocation of “unoccupied land” to freedmen (not to exceed 40 acres) – rather than 40 acres as requested, Congress allowed the Freedmen’s Bureau to sell only 5 to 10 acre tracts of land to freed slaves.

So, all in the course of a year, promises made by government officials for free land to be given to the newly freed slaves morphed into loans on less land than had been promised for free. That should have been their first clue. Actually it probably was.

1865 (May) President Johnson announces his Reconstruction Plan. The plan calls for the Southern States to abolish slavery but does not offer a role for Blacks in Reconstruction. The southern states are to determine the role of Blacks themselves.

1865 (June) Some 40,000 freed slaves were settled on what was referred to as "Sherman's Land" on some 400,000 acres of land in Georgia and South Carolina. Much of this land was for rice cultivation. The Freedmen created their own government, denied white access to the area and cultivated their land.

1865 (Summer) President Johnson reverses Sherman's Field Order 15 by ordering that virtually all plantation lands given to freed slaves be returned to the original plantation owners.

1865 (October) A reluctant General O. Howard, Chair of the Freedmen's Bureau assigned the task to tell freed slaves in Georgia and South Carolina that they must return the land they had settled on to the original owners. Some 2,000 Blacks came to the local church on Edisto Island to hear his comments. Howard said the freed slaves need to "lay aside their bitter feelings. and to become reconciled to their old masters." They responded "No, never!" "Can't do it!" "Why, General Howard, do you take away our lands?" Petitions by Blacks were drafted to protest betrayal. The first stated: " General, we want Homesteads, we were promised Homesteads by the government. If it does not carry out the promises its agents made to us...we are left in a more unpleasant condition than our former....You will see this is not the condition of really free men." (Eric Foner & Joshua Brown Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction)

www.federationsoutherncoop.com...

So checking on our current conditions, would you say white people are as free as once promised, or have they also been left in a mortgaged and an unpleasantly foreclosed upon condition? And while you’re checking on that, be aware that blacks and native Indians have long since learned how all this promised free stuff like *choke * gasp* healthcare, really works.

But just because “other colored peoples” are ahead of us on the learning curve, that doesn’t mean we don’t have more in common with them than we do with the universal deal breakers who may walk like us and talk like us and look like us but are nothing like us.

That’s why the deal breakers need to keep throwing Trayvon/Zimmerman type fuel on the fires they built all those many years ago, to remind us all of our mainly superficial differences to prevent an organized alignment of people uniting and rejecting the fraudulent deals together so finally everyone can be free, or at least freer than we now are.

What say you, ATS?

Racism will never go away only because TPTB will not let it.. people get shot and kill ever day, people starving, homeless, jobless, where i live a black man cut out his white GF and baby's hearts put them in a sack and walked in the local police station with it.. That ever make the CNN? .. It just makes me sick how the brain washing corporation big banker .corrupt government owned news boob tube crap gets ever one all worked up and keeps the race issue going and going..we are all human beings it is the year 2013 past is the past.. The whole damn world is just nuts....

Originally posted by Hamjoe
Racism will never go away only because TPTB will not let it.. people get shot and kill ever day, people starving, homeless, jobless, where i live a black man cut out his white GF and baby's hearts put them in a sack and walked in the local police station with it.. That ever make the CNN? .. It just makes me sick how the brain washing corporation big banker .corrupt government owned news boob tube crap gets ever one all worked up and keeps the race issue going and going..we are all human beings it is the year 2013 past is the past.. The whole damn world is just nuts....

I hear what you're saying. Hate is so much easier than cooperation and mutual respect, we'd actually have to work at that. And they give us so many excuses for not bothering to try.

Government Caught Paying Protesters After Trayvon Martin Shooting To Create Race War

(JW) Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents in response to local, state, and federal records requests revealing that a little-known unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Community Relations Service (CRS), was deployed to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman.

JW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ on April 24, 2012; 125 pages were received on May 30, 2012. JW administratively appealed the request on June 5, 2012, and received 222 pages more on March 6, 2013. According to the documents:

March 25 – 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being “deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”

March 25 – 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 “in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.

March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL “to provide support for protest deployment in Florida.”

March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent an additional $751.60 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31.”

April 3 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $1,307.40 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations planned in Sanford.”

April 11 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $552.35 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male.”

govtslaves.info...

DON'T FALL FOR IT! As I said in the OP, they need us at each other's throats to protect their own.

reply to post by frazzle


I knew my 4x’s Great Grandfather was a good guy. Yes, he waged war in a totally ruthless manner, but all in the effort to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He tried to do the right thing, but was over-ruled eventually. Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
reply to post by frazzle

 

I knew my 4x’s Great Grandfather was a good guy. Yes, he waged war in a totally ruthless manner, but all in the effort to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He tried to do the right thing, but was over-ruled eventually. Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Thing is, every single combatant or soldier in every war ever fought had to believe he was the good guy and the one he was shooting at, or hanging from the barn rafters, or slicing to ribbons was the bad guy. Otherwise there'd be no war. And at the end, everyone on every side who manages to survive gets overruled by the ones who fomented anger and injected hatred and declared the wars.

Different war, but

A U.S. soldier who participated in the Iraq war has written a resignation letter lashing out at the U.S. war policy.

Brandon M. Toy wrote in a letter published by Common Dreams on Tuesday that he was “misled” by the U.S. military when he joined it a decade ago.

“At the time of my enlistment, I believed in the cause. I was ignorant, naïve, and misled,” he wrote.

www.presstv.ir...

Young and dumb, the warmongers wouldn't get far without the young and dumb. Unfortunately some don't live to get older and wiser but its almost impossible to explain that to the young.

reply to post by frazzle


I totally agree with you. Rarely do the rank and file want war though.

But I've always found that when given a crappy task, the best way to do it is get it over as quickly as possible, and hopefully well enough so that you don't have to do it again.

That is also why I am against the various current wars. It's become business as usual. Technically, the U.S. hasn't been in a war since 1945. But tell that to the Servicemembers and their families and chances are you'll get a fat lip.

Didn't Eisenhower warn us about this? I believe he did.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
reply to post by frazzle

 

I totally agree with you. Rarely do the rank and file want war though.

But I've always found that when given a crappy task, the best way to do it is get it over as quickly as possible, and hopefully well enough so that you don't have to do it again.

That is also why I am against the various current wars. It's become business as usual. Technically, the U.S. hasn't been in a war since 1945. But tell that to the Servicemembers and their families and chances are you'll get a fat lip.

Didn't Eisenhower warn us about this? I believe he did.

Guess I'd have made a decent Johnny Reb since I only take on tasks that I find to be in my own interests and the Johnny Rebs weren't slave owners, they were just a bunch of folks from southern states who wanted the federal government off their backs and out of their business. So slavery was used as an excuse to rope them back in to "protect national security" and put more meaning into the word "UNITED".

And when the dust settled it became abundantly clear that the black people the north was allegedly there to save were of no interest at all to the national government. They were used and discarded. They're being used again ~ or should I say still ~ and it looks like the justice department is working on an excuse to create a second civil war to distract us from the collapsing economy. Scapegoats on both sides.

Wars and excuses, excuses and wars. We were warned over and over again by more than Eisenhower. No one listens, its all about emotions and hype.

While I do not disagree with the point of the OP, the example used of Sherman's "fourty acres and a mule" is far from a good one, for several reasons:

• Sherman was a wartime general, and not authorized to give anyone anything. Any grant had to come from the Congress, which simply did not know about, approve of, or in the end allow the promise.
  
  
• Sherman was not a friend of the black population. He was anti-secession, not anti-slavery. He actually made the statement:

  
  “Gentlemen, n*****s and cotton caused this war, and I wish them both in Hell.”

  Source
  
  There were also several instances of personal disregard for freed slaves. Sherman's plan was to avoid direct conflict with the Confederate forces at all costs; at one point in 1864, he was unable to do so. As the Confederate forces bore down, he ordered his men to cut the bridge they had just crossed, leaving a mass of freed slaves who were trying to march with Sherman's forces defenseless on the other side. Sherman's aim was two fold: stop the Confederates so he could loot and plunder more, and rid himself of the blacks who he didn't want tagging along.
  
  
• The harsh racism that existed after the war was in large part attributable to Sherman's own actions. He did not conquer the South... he cut a swath of brutal destruction across it, with a hatred and devilry that is not far removed from the most heinous acts of Adolph Hitler. His men burned homes with residents still inside; raped and killed women in front of their children; and slaughtered children in front of their families for sport. Confederate soldiers returning home from the war found all these atrocities committed upon their loved ones by this monster, and with Sherman long gone, found only one group to blame: the freed slaves.

So the promise was made by a man who openly despised blacks, who repeatedly made efforts to separate himself from blacks, who was nothing less than a war criminal, and who did not have the authority to make a grant of land or equipment. Thia wasn't so much a promise broken as it was the act of a despicable example of inhumanity who cared nothing for the well being or even the existence of those history has falsely credited with "freeing."

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


I actually agree with much of what you said.

I guess my point being that blacks did not end up in a better place because of the interference and empty promises made by people like Sherman and so many others. The former slaves had no way of knowing whether or not Sherman had the authority to make such promises or if he was sincere in making them. What we know now, they didn't know then. The same could be said of many of the empty promises made to our own forebears. Even today people are not able to differentiate between empty promises and what is actually intended.

Another point is that during the "experiment" of blacks owning what they believed to be their own land, they deliberately insolated themselves from "white society". Segregation by their own design. Well, until white society decided they had no right to their own land and MUST be integrated into a society that neither wanted nor was willing to tolerate them as equals. It would be a genuine rock and a hard place scenario except they were not allowed either a rock or a place to call their own.

reply to post by frazzle

And I mostly agree with you, sir. I just could not allow that one thing go go unchallenged.

The history of the black population in America is a cornucopia of misinformation, misrepresentation, and outright lies. The Democratic Party (I am a true independent btw) spent 100 years trying to promote white supremacy; the Civil War which is so credited for freeing slaves was started by the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. 100 years later, the Democratic Governor of Alabama, George C. Wallace, stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa blocking the admission of two black people, after making the statement "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" earlier in his inaugural speech. Yet, today, who gets the vast majority of black votes? Democrats.

The Confederate Battlejack Flag is continuously touted as a symbol of slavery, despite the fact that it flew over a nation that was fighting not for slavery, but for their right to exist in a state of freedom from the tyranny of the Federal government. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America; it ended slavery in the South. The only reason slavery is considered the cause of the war was that Lincoln was in danger of losing re-election in 1864 because he was losing the war, and he used the issue to energize citizens to support him. The flag is a symbol of my ancestors' willingness to fight and die for their home and their beliefs, and a symbol of my cultural heritage. But propaganda has labelled it otherwise to make it a hated symbol, despite the fact that it is a symbol of a culture as precious to me as a black man's culture should be to him... and based on the number of allusions I see to Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Malcolm X, and others, a culture that is precious to black people.

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et.al., have continually drummed up issues of hatred and racism where none existed prior to their arrival. The only possible purpose (assuming they are sane) is that these so-called leaders are leading their followers backward into history instead of forward into the future... all for their own monetary profit and egocentric desires. They still speak of slavery, although slavery in the United States stopped a century and a half ago, so long removed that no one alive today even knew anyone who was a slave or owned a slave. Precious few can even say they had direct experience with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Even the Black Panthers have followed the time-tested path of the KKK. Just as the KKK evolved after the Civil War from a vigilante justice organization into a white supremacy organization, the Black Panthers are evolving from a racial justice group to a black supremacy group. Just as the KKK became an outcast impotent group of irrelevants, so will the Black Panthers. The problem is that, just as the KKK stirred up racial tensions during their demise, so will the Black Panthers.

Somewhere along the way we as a nation have to come to realize that there is no "black America" or "white America"... there is just America. The color of skin is irrelevant to anything other than a superficial description. There really is no difference between black and white, save the differences that people have been taught by the proponents of racism mentioned by name above.

Somewhere along the way we need to stop worrying about superficial things and concentrate on the similarities between us and not the differences. I want to read about the sheer genius of George Washington Carver right there beside the brilliance of Nikola Tesla and the tenacity of Benjamin Franklin. I want to learn about Rosa Parks as I also learn about Susan B. Anthony. I want to know more about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert E. Lee.

I want the truth... not black truth, not white truth... the truth.

When we all get to that point... we'll finally be whole.

Sorry for the rant.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


That was a most excellent rant! I loved every word.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by frazzle

And I mostly agree with you, sir. I just could not allow that one thing go go unchallenged.

The history of the black population in America is a cornucopia of misinformation, misrepresentation, and outright lies. The Democratic Party (I am a true independent btw) spent 100 years trying to promote white supremacy; the Civil War which is so credited for freeing slaves was started by the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. 100 years later, the Democratic Governor of Alabama, George C. Wallace, stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa blocking the admission of two black people, after making the statement "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" earlier in his inaugural speech. Yet, today, who gets the vast majority of black votes? Democrats.

The Confederate Battlejack Flag is continuously touted as a symbol of slavery, despite the fact that it flew over a nation that was fighting not for slavery, but for their right to exist in a state of freedom from the tyranny of the Federal government. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America; it ended slavery in the South. The only reason slavery is considered the cause of the war was that Lincoln was in danger of losing re-election in 1864 because he was losing the war, and he used the issue to energize citizens to support him. The flag is a symbol of my ancestors' willingness to fight and die for their home and their beliefs, and a symbol of my cultural heritage. But propaganda has labelled it otherwise to make it a hated symbol, despite the fact that it is a symbol of a culture as precious to me as a black man's culture should be to him... and based on the number of allusions I see to Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Malcolm X, and others, a culture that is precious to black people.

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et.al., have continually drummed up issues of hatred and racism where none existed prior to their arrival. The only possible purpose (assuming they are sane) is that these so-called leaders are leading their followers backward into history instead of forward into the future... all for their own monetary profit and egocentric desires. They still speak of slavery, although slavery in the United States stopped a century and a half ago, so long removed that no one alive today even knew anyone who was a slave or owned a slave. Precious few can even say they had direct experience with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Even the Black Panthers have followed the time-tested path of the KKK. Just as the KKK evolved after the Civil War from a vigilante justice organization into a white supremacy organization, the Black Panthers are evolving from a racial justice group to a black supremacy group. Just as the KKK became an outcast impotent group of irrelevants, so will the Black Panthers. The problem is that, just as the KKK stirred up racial tensions during their demise, so will the Black Panthers.

Somewhere along the way we as a nation have to come to realize that there is no "black America" or "white America"... there is just America. The color of skin is irrelevant to anything other than a superficial description. There really is no difference between black and white, save the differences that people have been taught by the proponents of racism mentioned by name above.

Somewhere along the way we need to stop worrying about superficial things and concentrate on the similarities between us and not the differences. I want to read about the sheer genius of George Washington Carver right there beside the brilliance of Nikola Tesla and the tenacity of Benjamin Franklin. I want to learn about Rosa Parks as I also learn about Susan B. Anthony. I want to know more about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert E. Lee.

I want the truth... not black truth, not white truth... the truth.

When we all get to that point... we'll finally be whole.

Sorry for the rant.

TheRedneck

On further reflection of your words, my own and all of the others on this forum and elsewhere, the truth of the matter is that the only way people can integrate peacefully is IF it is done naturally and organically BY the people doing the integrating. They were never given that option. Being forced at the point of a gun or being coerced by legislation, ordinances and public policy will have the extreme opposite reaction by everyone involved.

Reconstruction was truly a re-deconstruction for Blacks, Whites and Indians alike and its hard to believe that the people running the country hadn't already had that in mind as far back as the 17th century.

reply to post by frazzle

That is a realization I came to quite some time ago. But it goes against human nature. Human nature is to control and force others to do one's will... send busses to make kids go to the right school, pass laws requiring special treatment based on skin color to "make up" for past errors, make certain words socially toxic so people never get together to talk.... and even worse, make sure to control every national conversation to make sure no one gets "offended" and nothing gets solved.

In other words, throw them all together by law, make laws to put nerves on end, and make it impossible to communicate with each other... that's like mixing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.... you don't get Jello.

We can stop it... but apparently we don't want to.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by frazzle

That is a realization I came to quite some time ago. But it goes against human nature. Human nature is to control and force others to do one's will... send busses to make kids go to the right school, pass laws requiring special treatment based on skin color to "make up" for past errors, make certain words socially toxic so people never get together to talk.... and even worse, make sure to control every national conversation to make sure no one gets "offended" and nothing gets solved.

In other words, throw them all together by law, make laws to put nerves on end, and make it impossible to communicate with each other... that's like mixing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.... you don't get Jello.

We can stop it... but apparently we don't want to.

I don't know that it can be stopped, its so ingrained by now that its part of our DNA.

It occurred to me at the time I posted this thread that many posters might not even know what 20 acres and a mule was in reference to and perhaps I was right. The fact that there are so many threads addressing Zimmerman/Travon specifically, all running multiple pages more or less confirms that for me.

It seems that American History has pretty much been reduced to a barefoot George Washington crossing the Delaware and somewhere around half the people in this country can't name the three branches of government. Its so bad now that in recent years the only thing a lot of people think about when you say "government" is Obama. The past is the past, they say, and it should have no bearing on the present or future because we're so much smarter and everything. We even have smart phones now, so why bother learning about yesterday. And we have a black president, for crying out loud, so what are all those losers *itching about now. It simply doesn't work that way.

So what if this whole ordeal was cocked up to strip the underlying racism that's been going on forever naked for people to see. This administration's credibility is already in the tank and they have almost nothing to lose at this point, so what if federal interference in this particular case was designed to shock people enough to make them look. Granted, some will never see anything but what they've always seen ~ that its always someone else's fault, but it could have a reverse psychological effect, as well.

At least its got people talking about what so many have long denied, that prejudice and bigotry is a fundamental problem with society, even if its between age groups, genders or socio-economic status.

reply to post by frazzle

I really hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think all the showcasing is designed to expose racism as much as it is designed to increase racism. The administration has failed, and they need someone for the people to blame... why not each other?

The recent circus (I'm not even going to say the names I am so sick of hearing about it) has been warped by the MSM to be about race and only race. There are people I can talk openly with about politics and religion that I simply can't talk to about that mess. At least one thread on this very site is about the loss of a friendship over the results of a Florida trial.

That's beyond sad.

There are a few conversations on ATS which are doing some good and allowing people to talk out their differences and see their similarities, but ATS is not reality. ATS is the best of the best, and far removed from the typical squabbling which happens in America every day.

But... the longest quest begins with a single step... may ATS be the ground for that first step.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by frazzle

I really hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think all the showcasing is designed to expose racism as much as it is designed to increase racism. The administration has failed, and they need someone for the people to blame... why not each other?

The recent circus (I'm not even going to say the names I am so sick of hearing about it) has been warped by the MSM to be about race and only race. There are people I can talk openly with about politics and religion that I simply can't talk to about that mess. At least one thread on this very site is about the loss of a friendship over the results of a Florida trial.

That's beyond sad.

There are a few conversations on ATS which are doing some good and allowing people to talk out their differences and see their similarities, but ATS is not reality. ATS is the best of the best, and far removed from the typical squabbling which happens in America every day.

But... the longest quest begins with a single step... may ATS be the ground for that first step.

TheRedneck

So call me Pollyanna.

Of course I saw the thread about friends losing friends over this, I know that is happening all over the place and that is sad, but this extreme polarization IS worse than sad, its dangerous and we need to knock it off. NOW.

I am aware of the possibility or even the probability that as you say, this may be about providing cover for government by inflaming people against one another, my point is that's almost TOO obvious, almost reverse psychology obvious.

And while I may very well be wrong, I really don't want to be wrong because otherwise we're looking at Civil War redux. And anybody who thinks that would be a good thing needs to read Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain".

reply to post by frazzle


You should read up on the appointed governor of Tennessee at the end of the Civil War...Parson Brownlow confiscated several thousand acres of land from Tennessee residents and divided amongst the black population...Carpet baggers bought most of the land from the black people for a pittance ...Anyway it's a pretty good read...

reply to post by daddyroo45


Ahh, the carpetbaggers. I wonder how things would have turned out in this country if someone had thrown a monkey wrench in all the carpetbagging speculators aspirations early on, they had a hand in scooping up the most valuable Homestead Act land before it got into the wrong hands, as well.

Thank you for the reading suggestion, I'll take a look.

ETA:
What a peach

In March 1865 Tennessee Unionists chose Brownlow to succeed Andrew Johnson as governor. Though he never explicitly renounced his anti-abolitionist beliefs, he further antagonized Tennessee Confederates by working with Congressional Republicans to pass the 14th Amendment, which allowed Tennessee to rejoin the Union and avoid Radical Reconstruction.

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...

That would be the amendment that not only re-enslaved the former slaves, but also enslaved the rest of the country's population by placing them all under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. Equal justice under the law ~ yeah, right.