Freed people received no reparations and had Forty Acres land repossessed by President Johnson.

Evidence

The most obvious hurdle for the newly freed was the reality that the end of slavery had left them without capital. They received no reparations for the end of slavery. The promises made by General Sherman were quickly dashed after President Lincoln’s assassination. President Andrew Johnson stopped the operation of Field Order No. 15, repossessed the forty acres of land given to newly freed black men, and returned it to their white former enslavers. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 265

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: This is the historical baseline the reparations-as-accounting argument builds on; connects to the earlier diagnosis chapter arguments about unbuilt black wealth.
• ADDENDUM: The broken Field Order No. 15 promise supports the reparations-debt framing; distinct from the sacrifice essay but the accounting-for-unfulfilled-promise logic resonates.

Related

• The federal government repossessed land promised to freedmen and returned it to enslavers (similarity 0.94)
• Farmland promised to freedpeople was revoked and returned to former enslavers. (similarity 0.86)
• Reneged land promises forced freed people into exploitative sharecropping contracts (similarity 0.84)
• President Johnson reversed Sherman’s land order and returned freedmen’s land to former enslavers. (similarity 0.83)
• Field Order No. 15 granted freed people exclusive self-governance over their land (similarity 0.82)
• President Johnson reversed the land promise and returned property to former enslavers within months (similarity 0.82)
• The rescinded land grant was a missed opportunity whose costs are incalculable (similarity 0.82)
• Freed people received nothing while wage theft from slavery totals $19 trillion (similarity 0.78)