40 Acres and a Mule

President Johnson stopped the redistribution of planters land to the slaves. Radical Republicans push new plan. Freed slave families still get their 40 Acres and a mule. It comes from the lands in the west. A version of the Homestead Act of 1864 for the former slaves. In 10 years, 1866-1876, 3 million Negro (polite term for blacks back then) move west. Totally shifted economics in the south and the west.

Comments?
 
Not happening. First off, there never was any promise made about 40 acres and a mule. Second, Whites wanted that land. Part of the issue with slavery was how the Planters and speculators kept taking the best land as the U.S. moved west of the Appalachians, even if they never set foot on it. And then there is the issue that African-Americans might not want to be sent to the Great American Desert, where they would not have supplies, would be spread out, all that stuff.

3 million Negro (polite term for blacks back then)
Call them Freedmen.
 
President Johnson stopped the redistribution of planters land to the slaves. Radical Republicans push new plan. Freed slave families still get their 40 Acres and a mule. It comes from the lands in the west. A version of the Homestead Act of 1864 for the former slaves. In 10 years, 1866-1876, 3 million Negro (polite term for blacks back then) move west. Totally shifted economics in the south and the west.

Comments?
Try giving them Rebel land in the south instead. White Northerners aren't going to stomach having "their" land given away (Hell, one of the big drivers of the Free Soil movement was to avoid having to compete with black labor), but punishing the traitors by confiscating their land? That's far more palitable.

Added bonus; it keeps the blacks down south. Maintains the west as a place for downtrodden Northerners to achieve their American dream which fits far better into the period's cultural perspective and still highly racist attitudes. The freedmen also get to stay close to home and together which I'm sure most would prefer, especially now that they're men of property and some monicum of status
 
Good thinking.

One way to gain additional support is to also give land to poor whites, who were generally concentrated in different areas of the South than the freedmen. Compensate small farmers who owned fewer than 10 slaves. Amnesty for rank and file Confederate soldiers; only large planters, high ranking military officers, and Confederate politicians are punished.

The long term effect would be limited. The financial crashes in the 1870s, 1890s, and 1920s would destroy a lot of the newly landed farmers, to the benefit of northern banking interests and robber barons.
 
President Johnson stopped the redistribution of planters land to the slaves.
Comments?

No he didn't. He handed back a few places that some escaped slaves had been living on for lack of anywhere else to put them. Even had those blacks been allowed to stay, they would have been a drop in the bucket.

Anything like this could work only in areas which were more or less solidly Black. Try it in any county with a significant White population, and the new occupants are just found a few days or weeks later lying in some country lane with bullet holes in their backs.
 
Remember the Homestead Act was to give the land away. You lived it and improved it and after 5 years it was yours. The Union generals started the 40 acres and a mule to improve the lot of The former slaves. President Johnson stopped it claiming private property could not be taken from the landowners. Allowing the blacks to go out west removes the power of the southern aristocrats. It would also eliminate the growth of Jim Crow. The lives of poor whites in the south improves because their labor would be in demand.
 
Good thinking.

One way to gain additional support is to also give land to poor whites, who were generally concentrated in different areas of the South than the freedmen. Compensate small farmers who owned fewer than 10 slaves. Amnesty for rank and file Confederate soldiers; only large planters, high ranking military officers, and Confederate politicians are punished.

To what purpose? That just tranfers political power from rich whites to poor or middling ones - who if anything are even more racist.

The long term effect would be limited. The financial crashes in the 1870s, 189ong0s, and 1920s would destroy a lot of the newly landed farmers, to the benefit of northern banking interests and robber barons.

How would they hold onto it anywhere near that long?

OTL, the North couldn't even protect their right to turn out and vote one day a year. How does it protect them 24/7 in holding their confiscated land?
 
White folks would never allow it, they'd salt the fields and kill any black person claiming land parcels.
 
They did this IRL. Nearly a million black Exodusters lived in the American west in the years after the civil war. Some migrated for economic conditions and some stuck around after constructing the railroads.
 
They did this IRL. Nearly a million black Exodusters lived in the American west in the years after the civil war. Some migrated for economic conditions and some stuck around after constructing the railroads.
Where in the West because they were banned in Oregon and the black middle class was so scorned in SF they migrated to Victoria, B.C.

LA was initially populated by black and mulatto Mexicans but by the time of US takeover I hadn't read of black Americans being given access for being former slaves.
 
To what purpose? That just tranfers political power from rich whites to poor or middling ones - who if anything are even more racist.

Buys their support.

The level of public sentiment against freedmen in the 19th century is overstated. A lot of business interests viewed segregation as an expensive regulatory burden, and the racists had to steal the 1896 elections to consolidate their system.
 
Buys their support.

The level of public sentiment against freedmen in the 19th century is overstated. A lot of business interests viewed segregation as an expensive regulatory burden, and the racists had to steal the 1896 elections to consolidate their system.

Why would they stay bought? Once they've taken whatever advantage they can from such a programme, there's no incentive to play the game any more. Why should they go shares with the Freedmen when by whipping up a bit of racism they can take the lot?

Also, a lot of these middling Whites are cousins or younger brothers of planters. There's no way you can strike at planters w/o striking at a lot of other whites too.

And anyway, why exactly should anybody bother? Once it was clear that the ex-Rebs were never going to start another rebellion, there was no longer any need to exclude them from political power, so securing political rights for Blacks became more trouble than it was worth. Helping the Freedmen simply served no purpose. Indeed, if it slowed down the process of reconciliation between the sections, it was positively undesirable, hence its speedy abandonment.
 
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