Port Royal tax sales: the land goes to auction1863–1890 · Beaufort District (Port Royal), South CarolinaMarch 1863: the U.S. sells Sea Island plantations for unpaid federal "direct tax." About 60,000 acres around Beaufort are set aside and 16,000 acres go to the first auction; Union soldiers and officers buy much of it. The families already living and working the land must bid for it. Sales run to 189National Park Service, The 1863 Beaufort District Tax Sale (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1863-beaufort-district-tax-sale.htm)
Circular No. 15: the Bureau hands the land back1865–1866 · Washington, D.C. (Freedmen's Bureau)September 12, 1865: Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner O. O. Howard issues Circular No. 15, approved by President Johnson. Land the Bureau held "may be restored to owners pardoned by the President" on proof of pardon and title. Freedpeople working the land keep only the growing crop or pay for their labCircular No. 15, Sept 12 1865, The American Presidency Project (https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/circular-no-15)
Edisto Island: "we were promised Homestead's"1865 · Edisto Island, South CarolinaOctober 1865: Howard comes to Edisto Island to tell the freedpeople settled there under Field Order No. 15 that the land goes back to its former owners. Their committee (Henry Bram, Ishmael Moultrie, Yates Sampson) answers in writing to Howard and President Johnson: "we want Homestead's; we were proEdisto Island freedpeople to O. O. Howard, Oct 1865 (Facing History, Freedpeople Protest the Loss of Their Land: https://facinghistory.org/resource-library/freedpeople-protest-loss-their-land)
Special Field Order No. 15: forty-acre plots on the coast1865 · Savannah, GeorgiaJanuary 16, 1865: Gen. W. T. Sherman sets aside the Sea Islands and the coast from Charleston to the St. Johns River for freedpeople in plots of up to forty acres. About 40,000 people settle on more than 400,000 acres. Within the year President Andrew Johnson's pardons and the Freedmen's Bureau's reGeorgia Encyclopedia, Sherman's Field Order No. 15 (https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/shermans-field-order-no-15/m-4814); Wikipedia, Black land loss in the United States, citing Conley (2010) and Williams (2010)
Southern Homestead Act: 46 million acres, about 1,000 deeds1866–1876 · Southern land offices (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi)1866: Congress opens about 46 million acres of public land in five Southern states to homesteaders. Black families file about 6,500 claims and about 1,000 end in a certificate of title. Local land officers ignore the law or the Freedmen's Bureau, the land offered is often poor, and white claimants aWikipedia, Southern Homestead Act of 1866, citing Claude F. Oubre, Forty Acres and a Mule (1978) and Paul W. Gates, Journal of Southern History 6:3 (1940)
Davis Bend: bought for $300,000, back to the Davis family1867–1881 · Davis Bend (Hurricane and Brierfield), Mississippi1867: Joseph Davis sells the Hurricane and Brierfield plantations to Ben Montgomery and his family, who were held there, for $300,000. The Montgomerys run a colony of Black farmers on the bend. Bad crops, low prices, floods and debt follow, and in 1881 ownership reverts to the Davis family. Isaiah MMississippi History Now, Isaiah T. Montgomery, 1847-1924, Part I (https://mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/isaiah-t-montgomery-1847-1924-part-I); Wikipedia, Davis Bend, Mississippi
Fortune Taylor: patented in 1875, sold in pieces from 18781869–1885 · Tampa, Florida (east bank of the Hillsborough River)1869: Benjamin Taylor files a homestead claim on about 33 acres on the east bank of the Hillsborough River and dies that year. July 1, 1875: the federal patent goes to "Fortune Taylor widow of Benjamin Taylor." In 1878 she sells part to Tampa's mayor, Edward A. Clarke, for $252; the records for 1878Proof Library P148 (BLM GLO patent, July 1 1875; Tampa Bay Times, 2017)
Fort Brooke 1883: Black applicants turned away1883–1892 · Fort Brooke reservation, Tampa, FloridaMarch 19, 1883: Dr. Edmund Carew files a homestead claim on the whole 155-acre fort reservation, backed by Senator Wilkinson Call. April 2, 1883: the General Land Office halts new claims, and Black applicants (Frank Jones, Julius Caesar, Andrew Stillings and others) are rejected. The land ends up coProof Library P149 (GLO and Interior rulings, Tampa newspapers, via tampapix)
1908: restrictions lifted on freedmen allotments1908–1930 · Muskogee, Indian Territory (Five Tribes agency)May 27, 1908: Congress removes all sale restrictions from the allotments of Five Tribes freedmen, intermarried whites and allottees of less than half "Indian blood" (35 Stat. 312). Freedmen land can now be sold, taxed and mortgaged at once, and guardianships and county probate courts are used to movAct of May 27, 1908, 35 Stat. 312 (https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/35/312); Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Allotment (https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AL011); Angie Debo, And Still the Waters Run (1940)