Question

Forty acres and a mule referred to -

A. A failed attempt by Congress to give land to Freedmen in return for years of unpaid labor.
B. A successful attempt by Congress to give land to Freedmen in return for years of unpaid labor.
C. A successful attempt by southern governments to restrict the amount of land Freedmen could own.
D. A failed attempt by southern governments to restrict the amount of land Freedmen could own.

Answer 1

Forty acres and a mule referred to a failed attempt by Congress to give land to Freedmen in return for years of unpaid labor.

Step-by-step explanation:

Forty acres and a mule referred to a failed attempt by Congress to give land to Freedmen in return for years of unpaid labor.

After the Civil War, many former black slaves who had the desire and skills to farm struggled to acquire their own land as whites tried to hold on to theirs. The idea of forty acres and a mule emerged as a temporary wartime measure to address the refugee problem. General Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 set aside confiscated land for the settlement of freedpeople in forty-acre plots, and it carried the expectation of land redistribution. However, President Johnson reversed the policy, ordering the return of land to white landowners and preventing the redistribution of land in the South.