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Forty acres and a mule refers to a concept in the United States for agrarian reform for former enslaved African American farmers, following disruptions to the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War. Many freedmen believed and were told by various political figures that they had a right to own the land they had long worked as slaves, and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war, long after proclamations such as Sherman's Special Field Orders, No. 15 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act were explicitly reversed. Some land redistribution occurred under military jurisdiction during the war and for a brief period thereafter. But, Federal and state policy during the Reconstruction era emphasized wage labor, not land ownership, for African Americans. Almost all land allocated during the war was restored to its pre-war owners. Several African American communities did maintain control of their land, and some families obtained new land by homesteading. African American land ownership increased markedly in Mississippi during the 19th century, particularly. The state had much undeveloped bottomland behind riverfront areas that had been cultivated before the war. Most blacks acquired land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of their property for many. ==Background== The institution of slavery in the United States deprived multiple generations of the opportunity to own land. Legally, slaves could not own property, but in practice they did acquire capital — and generally perceived themselves as the lowest-ranking members of the capitalist system.〔Mitchell, ''From Reconstruction to Deconstruction'' (2001), pp. 523–524.〕 As legal slavery came to an end, many freed people fully expected to gain ownership of the land they had worked.〔〔 African Americans in the U.S. faced severe discrimination, and were maintained as a distinct racial group by laws against “miscegenation”.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), p. xv.〕 Perceived as a threat to society, and particularly as a dangerous influence on slaves, free Negroes had not been welcome in most areas of the United States.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xvi–xviii.〕 Before the Civil War, most free blacks lived in the North, which had abolished slavery. In some places they acquired substantial real estate.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xx, xxxviii–xl.〕 In the South, vagrancy laws had allowed the states to force free Negroes into labor, and sometimes to sell them into slavery.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xxiiv–xxiv.〕〔 Nevertheless, free Africans across the country performed a variety of occupations, and a small number owned and operated successful farms.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xxxvi, xlii–xliii.〕 Others settled in Southern Ontario and Nova Scotia, possible endpoints of the Underground Railroad.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xli–xlii.〕 White abolitionists did not agree on how freed people ought to be treated. While some advocated full redistribution of land, others did not support any type of race mixing. Plans for a colony began in 1801 when James Monroe asked President Thomas Jefferson to help create a penal colony for rebellious Blacks.〔Dyer, “The Persistence of the Idea of Negro Colonization” (1943), p. 54.〕〔Lacy K. Ford, ''Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South''; Oxford University Press, 2009, p. (62 ).〕 The American Colonization Society formed in 1816 to address the issue of free African Americans through resettlement abroad.〔Woodson, ''Brief Treatment of the Free Negro'' (1925), pp. xl–xli.〕 By 1860, the ACS had settled thousands of Africans in Liberia. But colonization was slow and unappealing to many, and as mass emancipation loomed there was no clear understanding of what might happen to millions of soon-to-be-free Blacks.〔〔 This issue had long been known to White authorities as “The Negro Problem”.〔〔Dyer, “The Persistence of the Idea of Negro Colonization” (1943), p. 53.〕 The idea of a land grant to an entire class of people was not so unusual in the 1700s and 1800s as it seems today. For example, Thomas Jefferson proposed a grant of 50 acres to any free man who didn't already have at least 50 acres in his draft of a revolutionary constitution for Virginia in 1776.〔Draft Constitution of Virginia, 1776 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffcons.asp〕 More proximately, various Homestead Acts were passed 1862–1916, granting 160–640 acres (a quarter section to a full section), depending on the act, and earlier homesteading occurred under statutues such as the Preemption Act of 1841. Freedmen were not generally eligible for homesteading, because they were not citizens, which changed with the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, when they were granted citizenship. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「forty acres and a mule」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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