16 January 1865
Land redistribution / redressSupplement
Forty acres and a mule: land redistribution and its limits
Coastal South Carolina, Georgia and Florida
Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15 reserved certain coastal lands for settlement by freed people, in plots of up to forty acres. Land offered a material foundation for freedom, but the order was geographically limited and did not establish a permanent nationwide right to land.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The familiar phrase “forty acres and a mule” summarizes a specific wartime policy, not a universal grant to every formerly enslaved person. Subsequent restoration of land to former owners undermined redistribution.