What if 40
Acres Were Given Permanently?
A Historical Fiction Scenario
On January 16, 1865, General William
Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15. The order provided the Union confiscated
400,000 acres of coastal land from Charleston, South Carolina to St. John’s
River, Florida to the freed slaves. Pressure from Northern Abolitionists to
provide slaves that successfully fled and join the Union Army some form of
living in the devastated South. Land
Management of the confiscated land was a high priority after the basic medical
care and food were provided. Congress
agreed that the land would not be given away, but sold at a marginal sell
price. Tens of thousands of Blacks
purchased the available land through the Federal Freedman’s Bureau. On March 3, 1865 Congress chartered the
Freedman’s Savings Bank headed up by Henry Cooke, the brother of Jay Cooke. The bank’s charter was to capture the new
earnings from freed Blacks and to teach basic financial education and banking
skills through employment. Up to 7% was
given on deposits.
On May 29, 1865 President Andrew
Johnson passed an Amnesty Proclamation giving the ex-Confederates their land
back and forfeiting the previous purchases by Blacks. Instead Blacks were encouraged to seek
employment from the very Confederate Former Masters that they were held under
slavery. Many rented the newly taken
land and the Confederate owners created controversy by withholding farm
earnings from Blacks. President Johnson who
was born in Raleigh, North Carolina had a sympathetic ear for the Southerners
and reversed all of Lincoln’s efforts.
Let us begin by changing the key
course of events. President Johnson’s
brother William Johnson, was captured by the Union Army for the slaughter of
Slaves that were fleeing to join the Union Army. Secretary of War, Simon Cameron of
Pennsylvania heard of this slaughter and would team up with Vice President
Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, and Jay Cooke Principal Financier of the Union
military effort in the Civil War, to become President Johnson’s fiercest
adversaries. Andrew Johnson originally a Southern Democrat, switched parties to
become Lincoln’s new Vice President replacing Hannibal Hamlin. Johnson was a supporter of slavery. Johnson eventually made this statement
early in his Presidency. “This is a country for white
men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white
men,” he wrote in 1866. The reason for the capturing of
William Johnson was not known except for Lincoln cabinet members and Jay
Cooke. Cooke wanted to insure the
success of the Non-Profit Freedmen’s Savings & Trust Company led by his
brother Henry. Cooke would use this
information to pressure Johnson until his eventual impeachment by the House of
Representatives.
Fredrick Douglass was inserted as a
Board of Directors and work closely with the Bank Operations Executives because
of the possible appearance of conflict of interest between Henry Cooke and Jay
Cooke & Company. Douglass was urged
by the original creators of the Freedmen’s Bank, A.M. Sperry, an Abolitionist
and Treasurer and Congregational Minister J.W. Alvord to work closely with the
Bank given the large number of Black depositors and deposits. Those depositors
would eventually swell to 100,000 with deposits totaling more than $50 million in
June 1873. That would be the equivalent
of almost $1 Billion in 2007 dollars.
The most pressing concern from the
Black Leadership with the newly acquired land was federal protection. The delegation from South Carolina was
Richard Cain, the first Black to serve in the House of Representatives in 1873
-1875 and 1877 -1879. Robert Elliot
served in the House of Representatives in 1871 and South Carolina Attorney
General in 1877. Elliot opposed granting
amnesty to ex-Confederate civilians and ranking military leaders. Robert Smalls, 1862 Navy War hero, Brigadier
General in South Carolina militia, also served in the House of Representatives
in 1874. Fredrick Douglass was painfully
aware that the ex-Slave owners would not accept the financial and social losses
that they would incur because of the Sherman Order No. 15. Douglass introduced a unique proposition that
he presented to Secretary of War, Simon Cameron. Douglass needed continued troop presence and
continuous military training for Blacks that occupied the land. Douglass vision was that Blacks will continue
to patrol the land with Union forces. In
exchange for troop access, Douglass would provide 1% of the Freedman’s Bank
deposit interest and 1% of the gross profits on the output of crops from the
land to cover the costs. Until the total costs were reached each year with an
extra 3% also at the end of each year. Douglass knew that Cameron would only be
interested if there was an “upside” for the military access. The stakes were high. In 1835, the core cotton producing states of
South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia produced 500
million pounds of cotton which were ready for export to London, Paris,
Liverpool, New Orleans, and New York.
That amount made up 55% of the entire U.S. export market. In 1860, 2 billion pounds of “Petit Gulf” cotton
were produced which amounted to more than 60% of the U.S. exports for that
year.
The benchmarks for the industry
during the early 1860’s in New Orleans was about .12 cents per pound and the yield
was about 1,000 to 1,200 pounds per acre. Each person had the capacity to work 10 acres.
Cotton was the engine to the textile
industry, as was American slave labor was to the global cotton industry. New England had 75% of the 5.14 million spindles
in operation and 52% of manufacturing operations in 1860. New England had 67% of the mill consummation,
or 283.7 million pounds of the 422.6 million pounds of all cotton used by all
U.S. mills. The interwoven aspect of New
England’s successful economy and Slave labor of cotton was undeniable.
From a global perspective, Britain’s
textile mills accounted for 40% of the country’s exports. Twenty percent of
Britain’s 22 million people where directly or indirectly involved in the cotton
textile industry. Britain relied on
American cotton for over 80% of the raw industrial material. American cotton was also the engine for
Britain’s economy. These points drove
home the fact that Douglass needed to build a strong coalition of leaders to
successful transform the state of freed Blacks.
More to come………..
Sources:
Myers, Barton. (2005, September
25). Sherman’s field order No. 15.
Hurst, Ryan. (n.d.). Bureau of
Refugees, Freedmen, and abandon lands (1865 – 1872)
Stiller, Jesse.
(n.d.). The Freedman’s Savings Bank: Good Intentions
Were Not Enough; A Noble Experiment Goes Awry.
https://www.occ.gov/about/what-we-do/history/freedman-savings-bank.html
NCC Staff. (2015, July 15).
Andrew Johnson: The most criticized President Ever? http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/07/marking-the-passing-of-maybe-the-most-criticized-president-ever/
Levy, John Ira. (n.d.). The Ways of Providence: Capitalism, Risk and
Freedom in America 1841 -1935. https://books.google.com/books?id=gPOXe09ePBMC&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=bibliography+of+henry+cooke+and+freedman%27s+bank&source=bl&ots=glYF_Z3iSi&sig=n7UA11ssSKoOvPzqxRRF0iXE_hk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxjpSF8IXRAhVLjFQKHQ0XCTAQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=bibliography%20of%20henry%20cooke%20and%20freedman's%20bank&f=false
The American Yawp. (n.d.). The Cotton Revolution. http://www.americanyawp.com/text/11-the-cotton-revolution/
Gates Jr., Henry Louis. (n.d.). Why was Cotton King? http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/why-was-cotton-king/
Cho, Nancy. (n.d.). Elliott, Robert Brown (1842 – 1884). http://www.blackpast.org/aah/elliott-robert-brown-1842-1884
