Editing Forty acres and a mule (section)

===Wage labor system===
Beginning in occupied Louisiana under General [[Nathaniel P. Banks]], the military developed a wage-labor system for cultivating large areas of land. This system—which took effect with Lincoln and Stanton's blessing soon after the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] legitimized contracts with the freedpeople—offered ironclad one-year contracts to freedpeople. The contract promised $10/month as well as provisions and medical care. The system was soon also adopted by General [[Lorenzo Thomas]] in Mississippi.<ref name=Belz46>{{harvnb|Belz|2000|pp=45–46}}</ref>

Sometimes land came under the control of Treasury officials. Jurisdictional disputes erupted between the Treasury Department and the military.<ref>{{harvnb|Cox|1958|p=425}} "Disposition of lands and indirectly of Negro labor through Treasury agents to northern lessees brought forth even greater condemnation than direct military supervision. [...] The investigations of James E. Yeatman for the Western Sanitary Commission late in 1863 revealed shocking exploitation and abuse of freedmen working the leased plantations. Attempts during 1864 to remedy those abuses resulted in confusion and conflict of authority between army officers and Treasury agents."</ref> Criticism of Treasury Department profiteering by General [[John Eaton (general)|John Eaton]] and journalists who witnessed the new form of plantation labor influenced public opinion in the North and pressured Congress to support direct control of land by freedmen.<ref>{{harvnb|Cox|1958|pp=425–426}} "There can be no doubt that these varied wartime experiences, together with the criticism and publicity they evoked, affected the Freedmen's Bureau legislation. They make clear what the framers of its final version were attempting to avoid, namely, government plantation operation, exploitation of Negro labor by northern speculators, abuse and rigorous control of freedmen by southern planters whether in violation of military directives or in collusion with military personnel, even the minute paternalistic regulations drawn to safeguard the freedmen that might lead to a permanent 'pupilage'."</ref> The Treasury Department, particularly as Secretary Chase prepared to seek the [[1864 Republican National Convention|Republican nomination in 1864]], accused the military of treating the freedpeople inhumanely.<ref name=Belz46 /> Lincoln decided in favor of military rather than Treasury jurisdiction, and the wage labor system became more deeply established.<ref>{{harvnb|Belz|2000|p=47}}</ref> Abolitionist critics of the policy called it no better than [[serf]]dom.<ref>{{harvnb|Belz|2000|pp=52–53}}</ref>