Article: No Pensions for Ex-Slaves: How Federal Agencies Suppressed Movement To Aid Freedpeople

Forty Acres and a Mule

Article: No Pensions for Ex-Slaves: How Federal Agencies Suppressed Movement To Aid Freedpeople

2010

Article

The National Archives features an article that was written by Miranda Booker Perry and published in the summer 2010 edition of Prologue Magazine, titled, "No Pensions for Ex-Slaves: How Federal Agencies Suppressed Movement To Aid Freedpeople," which examines how, despite Union victory in the Civil War, efforts to help newly emancipated Blacks achieve some semblance of economic freedom were stymied. This is evidenced in the failed fulfillment of "Forty Acres and a Mule," which was part of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 that was issued on January 16, 1865, to allot land and leftover Army mules to formerly enslaved African American families. The article discusses how the idea of pursuing pensions for formerly enslaved people was pursued during the late nineteenth century, but the movement was faced with strong opposition. 

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Prologue Magazine (Contributor: The National Archives)

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