Editing Forty acres and a mule (section)

==Background==
{{Slavery}}
[[African Americans]] faced severe discrimination and were maintained as a distinct "racial" group by laws requiring racial segregation and prohibiting [[miscegenation]].<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|p=xv}}</ref> Prior to the Civil War, most free African Americans lived in the North, where slavery had been abolished. Free African Americans were often perceived as a job-stealing threat to society because they were usually willing to work for lower wages than white people. Moreover, they were seen as a dangerous influence on those who remained enslaved. Because of this, freed slaves were unwelcome in most areas of the United States.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xvi–xviii}}</ref>

In the South, vagrancy laws had allowed the states to force free African Americans into labor and sometimes to sell them into slavery.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xxiiv–xxiv}}</ref><ref name=WoodsonXli /> Nevertheless, free African Americans across the country performed a variety of occupations, including a small number who owned and operated successful farms.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xxxvi, xlii–xliii}}</ref> Others [[Black Canadians#Underground Railroad|settled in Upper Canada]] (now [[Southern Ontario]]), an endpoint of the [[Underground Railroad]], and in [[Black Nova Scotians|Nova Scotia]].<ref name=WoodsonXli>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xli–xlii}}</ref>

In contrast to the northern United States where free African Americans were able to acquire substantial real estate, the institution of [[slavery in the United States|slavery in the southern United States]] deprived multiple generations of African Americans of the opportunity to own land.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xx, xxxviii–xl}}</ref> Legally, slaves could not own anything. But in practice, they did acquire [[capital (economics)|capital]].<ref name=Mitchell523>{{harvnb|Mitchell|2001|pp=523–524}}</ref> As legal slavery came to an end, white people did not agree on how freed slaves ought to be treated. Some maintained that the lands the freed slaves had farmed without compensation should be confiscated from their former owners and given to them.<ref name=Mitchell523 /><ref name=Foner277 /> Others, fearing the [[racial integration|"race"-mixing]] that allowing them to remain in the U.S. would inevitably bring about, wanted them sent "somewhere else". Plans for a colony of freed slaves began in 1801 when [[James Monroe]] asked President [[Thomas Jefferson]] to help create a penal colony for rebellious blacks.<ref>{{harvnb|Dyer|1943|p=54}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Lacy K. Ford|title=Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xEC9K7quBoEC&pg=PA62|page=62|isbn=978-0-19-975108-2}}</ref> 

The [[American Colonization Society]] (ACS) was formed in 1816 to address the issue of free African Americans through settlement (not resettlement) abroad.<ref>{{harvnb|Woodson|1925|pp=xl–xli}}</ref> Although there was discussion of settling them in some undeveloped land in the new western territories or helping them emigrate to Canada or Mexico, the ACS decided to [[Back-to-Africa_movement|send them to Africa]]. They chose the closest available land, thereby minimizing transportation costs. However, colonization was slow and expensive and of little interest to most African Americans who had no ties with or interest in Africa. Some former slaves expressed that they were no more African than white Americans were British.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}} Between 1822 and the [[American Civil War]], the American Colonization Society had migrated approximately 15,000 free African Americans to [[History of Liberia#Americo-Liberian rule (1847–1980)|Liberia]].<ref name=TDIH>[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/liberian-independence-proclaimed "July 26, 1847 Liberian independence proclaimed"], This Day In History, History website.</ref> However, this number represented only a small fraction of the 7.5 million enslaved people who were about to be free. With mass emancipation looming, there was no consensus about what to do with the soon-to-be-free black slaves.<ref name=Dyer55 /><ref name=Bonekemper171 /> This issue had long been known to white authorities as "The Negro Problem".<ref name=Bonekemper171 /><ref>{{harvnb|Dyer|1943|p=53}}</ref>

Issuing a land grant to an entire class of people was not unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries. There was so much land that it was often given freely to anyone willing to farm it. For example, Thomas Jefferson included in his draft of a revolutionary constitution for Virginia in 1776 a proposed grant of 50 acres to any free man who did not already own that amount.<ref>{{cite web|title=Draft Constitution of Virginia|year=1776|url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffcons.asp}}</ref> Subsequently, the [[Preemption Act of 1841]], followed by several [[Homestead Acts]] that were passed between 1862 and 1916, variously granted between 160 and 640 acres (a quarter section to a full section) of land. However, free African Americans were not generally eligible for homesteading because they were not citizens. This changed with the passage of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] in 1868 which granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States". This was further solidified by the passage of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] in 1870 which granted all citizens, regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude", the right to vote.