Both before and during the US Civil War, political rhetoric in the northern states had a markedly radical tone that gave Southern blacks every reason to expect that they would be rewarded with `forty acres and a mule' at the end of the war, along with some measure of economic independence. Instead, freedmen were cast out across the landscape, most with no material possessions other than the clothes on their back. The current article offers a critical analysis of the structural and ideological forces that shaped American policy in the post-Civil War period and deprived the freedmen of promised resources that were vital to their gaining independence and, subsequently, to developing on a par with their white counterparts. This analysis suggests that these forces can best be understood within the context of the unique set of ideologies that were — and continue to be — the very backbone of Western capitalism.
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