WI: Lincoln Lives and Opts for Black Recolonization After the Civil War

Recall that in 1865, there were hundreds of millions of square acres of prime farmland to be filled out west in Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa (the previous three were still not "full"), Nebraska, Colorado, N/S Dakota, Idaho, California, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, western Canada, etc, etc. It would have been easy to get 40 acres of arable land to any black family.

Yes, in OTL, these lands were eventually filled up by others but it literally took decades.

For example, the Oklahoma land rush was for 50,000 people (mainly without their families) occurred in 1889 and that was far closer than many of these other lands. Every black family in the south could have taken five or ten homesteads each and still not even come close to filling up these territories assuming a family of four x 1,000,000.

And many southern freed slaves would not want to leave the south or would prefer the established northern states.

Try Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana and the Dakotas. Blacks wouldn't be given prime farmland, they would be given desert scrub land.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
I don't think any southern white will want to give up their state. Maybe the government could more strongly support the "Exoduster" movement, but not Kansas because the land is too good there. Maybe present-day Arizona and New Mexico?
This was the idea behind Shermanland, a part of South Carolina promised to blacks by the Union Army. This fell apart pretty quickly.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
Try Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana and the Dakotas. Blacks wouldn't be given prime farmland, they would be given desert scrub land.
Probably, but remember, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be dealt with and turned successful. They had wealthy backers in the NAACP who could help get equipment.

If the Jews could make the desert bloom in Israel with outside assistance, the same could happen in North America.
 
Probably, but remember, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be dealt with and turned successful. They had wealthy backers in the NAACP who could help get equipment.

If the Jews could make the desert bloom in Israel with outside assistance, the same could happen in North America.

I didn't say it was hopeless, merely they wouldn't get the best land.
 
Probably, but remember, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be dealt with and turned successful. They had wealthy backers in the NAACP who could help get equipment.

If the Jews could make the desert bloom in Israel with outside assistance, the same could happen in North America.

The NAACP was still over forty years in the future.
 
My guess is that they would reserve it for later White Folks. It was a very racist period.
Maybe but it was also not that terribly forward thinking. I can't believe they would leave prime land vacant so 30-50 years down the road it will be available for white people. This benefited the country as well as the proprietors.
 
Maybe but it was also not that terribly forward thinking. I can't believe they would leave prime land vacant so 30-50 years down the road it will be available for white people. This benefited the country as well as the proprietors.

Somehow I don't thinking giving prime farmland to ex-slaves would be popular. Most would probably figure it would better if it were left so their children and grandchildren could have it.
 
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