Talk:Forty acres and a mule

(Source)
The first primary source for this article is no longer available. Can anyone else find a strong source to support the information within the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.145.13 (talk) 00:31, 24 September 2005
 * While the following contrib is unconstructive, probably uncivil, and opposes well established policy, many of us would rather have an accurate account of the discussion than unnecessary suppressions.--Jerzy•t 08:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's factual and that's all you need ed to know! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.195.243.229 (talk) 00:16 &:17, 11 November 2005


 * I guess that is about
 * http://www.usconstitution.com/40Acres.htm,
 * whose "domain may be for sale". But the entry purported to be a link to the text of the Sherman order, which we have other addresses for. --Jerzy•t 08:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The reason why there is no good source is because this is a convenient myth not supported by historical documents.. A number of former slaves received land in the Black Swamp of NW Ohio - some of the cheapest, most worthless land in the US at the time. The land was so hostile to habitation - malarial ague, spread by great numbers of freakishly large mosquitos, led to short lives and high rates of infantile death. Additionally, the trees were massive in diameter and great in height = many were floated down the Maumee to be eventually used in the greatest Naval vessel and merchantmen ships of the era. The land, omce cleared, was a heavy clayey muck that made it extremely difficult for man or beast to walk on, making the agricultural skills of the South effectively useless. Settlers could survive by selling those huge timbers for ship masts, by weilding an adze to produce barrel staves and by burning the remaining wood scraps to produce potash which could be shipped in bulk, in those wooden barrels as lye, or used with pork fat to produce soap. Many of the first black settlers of Paulding County (the only county entirely within the Black Swamp) still live there, especially in Latty and Washington Township, although they were not listed in early censuses because nonwhites were of no interest to the census bureau. According to family stories, the forty acres was real, although it was hardly arable land until the swamp was drained decades later, but the mules were imaginary; cynics claim they were sold to westbound settlers by crooked government agents, but if they had been, how would they have known. In any case, they needed the mules in the army until the war was over, at which time, keeping promises to (n-word)s was hardly a priority for bureaucrats. This is a tender subject among the hoi polloi, and a student doing his doctoral thesis on the black population of NW Ohio encountered fierce resistance from white officials in gaining access to the earliest rrecords, which had been kept in a room with broken windows, mostly shielded from rain but less so from blowing snow and bird manure. 64.184.68.136 (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

(The math)
I have a question? Sherman did his math wrong because 400,000 acres divided by 40,000 newly freed black slaves would be 10 acres and a mule not 40. Can anyone tell me why it is 40 and not 10? thanks pheifdog —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.137.238 (talk) 01:25, 8 November 2006
 * Assumedly the land would go not to former slaves per say but to their households; the equation works if you figure an average house of four. 74.36.192.45 04:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe the offer of 40 acres was not to freed slaves but to those slaves who enlisted in Sherman's Army - an offer thereby only to adult males. I do want to emphasize that this offer does not translate into instant wealth; 40 acres at that time was about enough for subsistence of a small family, and everybody knows that mules are nearly impossible to breed, certainly not if the offer was of only one mule. Sherman's offer was not of instant wealth but the opportunity for very hard work for freed slaves. Sussmanbern (talk) 03:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

40 acres and a mule
40 acres has to do with what was concidered profitable and stable at the time. Ten good acres could bring a farmer a good garden crop for himself but for profit, forty acres was a standard plot.

The real question isn weather he was right but did he the authority? what was Shermans orders? What power did those order give him and why does the white decendents continue fighting reprorations so hard? -Antony —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.173.226.228 (talk) 17:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC).
 * Not enough mules for one thing.74.36.192.45 04:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Forty acres is 1/16 of a square mile. It is just enough for subsistence farming. A mule - an animal that cannot be bred to produce more animals - had a lifespan of roughly 35 years. The combination of 40 acres and only one mule describes a situation for a hardscrabble existence, requiring plenty of continual hard work. The promise of 40 acres & a mule should not be confused for a promise of ease, comfort, or prosperity. Sussmanbern (talk) 17:33, 7 January 2019 (UTC) The promise, if it was actually made, was to males who joined Sherman's Army on its marches and combat, it was not a guarantee for every former slaves but only for those men who became Union soldiers - and in Sherman's Army in particular. Sussmanbern (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Was the land ever reclaimed?
Johnson may have revoked Sherman's order and returned the legal rights to the former owners, but were the black homesteaders ever actually kicked off the land? I have read that many of them were never removed and their descendents are still living in the area (technically squatting on "abandoned" land, much like the Gullah of the Sea Islands or the Smokey Hollow community in Tate, Georgia). 74.36.192.45 04:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge with another page?
Check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_Special_Field_Orders,_No._15 Also, note that "Field Order Number 15" redirects to "40 Acres and Mule", not the above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.8.217.76 (talk) 01:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The bad Rdr at Field_Order_Number_15 stayed despite the above; now goes to the order, which IMO should stay a separate topic that includes efforts to sustain & extend what the order started. --Jerzy•t 09:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, i think i probably meant to say
 * ... a separate topic from this one that includes efforts to sustain & extend what the order started. (Even tho i should thus have said ", which includes" rather than "that includes".)
 * --Jerzy•t 05:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Johnson veto
The sentence beginning
 * It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that Johnson also vetoed the enactment of the policy as a federal statute ...

deserves a replacement with less direct focus on the mistake, which is a distraction from the topic (at least in the absence of verification that the mistake, as opposed to the fact, is notable; if such verification is available, let's see it so we can discuss whether the mistake meets our standards for notability). How about, for now, sticking to what is surely easily verifiable -- what he did veto -- with its footnote ref, and what is a reasonable inference, implicitly informative about the mistake, and probably verifiable as scholarly consensus -- with a fact tag that will serve to solicit a verifying ref. I.e., something along the lines of:
 * In February, 1866, Johnson vetoed a bill to increase the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau,insert ref here suggesting that his post-war administration's acquiescence could not be counted regarding wartime measures -- like the land grants, with or without mules -- that white Southerners opposed.insert fact tag here

Or perhaps the war/peace contrast, or the distinction between "white Southerners" and "Democrats" is mistaken, and other language should replace my first-thought candidate. In fact, maybe someone can quickly come up with the scholarly consensus on what the political tea-leaves said at that point. --Jerzy•t 05:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular culture
I removed the 'popular culture' section (see dif : ), it was largely unreferenced and added little to the encyclopedic value of the article. -- GateKeeper (talk) @ 00:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

comments on recent expansion
A few notes on how we got here and where we're going: salaam alaikum, groupuscule (talk) 16:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There's a lot of information swirling around that relates to "forty acres and a mule". Claude Oubre's Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership (1979) is generally considered to be an authoritative source on this topic, and had the most influence on what was ultimately included here. The Sea Islands case, beginning with the Port Royal Experiment and continuing with Special Field Orders, No. 15, receives a great deal of emphasis from Oubre and in other discussions of of the topic. Culturally, the "forty acres and a mule" slogan seems to have rippled out from the Sea Islands—though no one wants to make a definitive statement on that.
 * Some sections are quite short, particularly "Jurisdictional conflict and wage labor", "Domestic colonization plans", and the two subsections under "Reparations". These all offer fertile ground (!) for expansion to anyone who is interested.
 * In the long run, maybe some material from this article can be incorporated into spin-offs. For example, if the article on Grand Contraband Camp is substantially enriched, it may absorb some of the details from this page. Working on these connected articles will also help to select the most important details for this page.
 * There are plenty of great images that would make good illustrations for this article, and many are in the public domain. There should be lots more of these images on Commons; maybe we can add some there and then pick the best ones to go here.
 * We might consider renaming the article "forty acres and a mule", since this is a more common printing and reflects the phrase's status (widely discussed in the literature) as a slogan and aspiration. The argument for "40 acres" would be that Sherman's Orders, the Freedmen's Bureau Act, the Chiriquí project, and other specific plans call for 40 acres specifically; however, this is still awkward because official documents usually do not mention the mule directly along with the 40.

Sentence fragment in lead
"Government proclamations, particularly Sherman's Special Field Orders, No. 15 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act of early 1865." Yes, go on, what about them? --Khajidha (talk) 11:48, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Poor Grammar, sentence structure leads to faulty logic / arguments...
There is a statement in the overview:


 * "While some advocated full redistribution of land, others did not support any type of race mixing ..." - this is illogical at best, and willfully dishonest at worst.

What in the world does one thing (redistribution of land) have to do with "race mixing"? Nothing. I'll just go ahead an answer that for you. Abolitionists may well have (and many did) promote the distribution of land and "wealth", that is a stand-alone issue. How did that sentence ever make it into this article?

An underlying fear of race-mixing (Miscegenation) was certainly a part of the discord that drove America into a state a civil war - but that had nothing to do with the Abolitionist promotion of land re-distribution after the war. Those issues simply are NOT linked. At all.

This statement needs to be revised or removed, or I will do it myself the next time I visit this poorly written, yet very important page.

Comments / discussions re: my thesis statement are not required, since it is factual Prima facie. Note to the editors: Let's try harder to write better articles in the future and be better stewards of WP, shall we?

I have captured this page as it is today. I'm not going to get into an "edit war" with anyone regarding this writing error. War implies a contest of some kind. Not going to be a contest, since I am right. I'm flexible on most issues, but there is only one truth - and facts are not open to debate. Please, please try harder in the future to keep WP accurate and free of clumsy "sentences" such as the one I've pointed out herein. Cheers. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 16:52, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Food and Justice
— Assignment last updated by 2ndnotion (talk) 19:04, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

missing word or words?
"for the 470 plantation" What is a "470 plantation"? I think it should be "for the 470-acre plantation," but I don't know. 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:C58A:2D50:A264:EA29 (talk) 00:34, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I wanna be friend.
pls? 2601:2C1:8A00:990:D1DD:6A67:E900:58B (talk) 00:11, 25 April 2024 (UTC)