Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

"Pascal had always thought freedom would be like Joshua and the walls of Jericho in the Bible... God would raise up Joshua to blow a horn; and colored people would all shout. And those walls would come tumbling down forever. That would be freedom!"

But apparently, Pascal has been free... for two years. Two years ago President Lincoln freed the slaves, but the Masters are still buying and selling them. Pascal's Mama was just murdered for asking for more food for the starving slaves. And now the War Between the States is over. And he is free? But what is freedom?

Throughout Harriette Gillem Robinet's Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule Pascal struggles to answer that very question. Does owning land make you free? Does going to school make you free? Does having gold make you free? Or is it something deeper?

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the text follows Pascal, his brother Gideon, and their family of friends through the strange time of April to September 1865. During this time, General Sherman of the Union Army was laying waste to Southern Plantations: punishing white masters and freeing slaves. He quickly found, however, that once the slaves were free they had nothing else to do, but follow his troops in search of food and support. In an effort to rid himself of these extra beings, he told the freed slaves to take for themselves any unclaimed farm land and to begin farming.

News quickly spread that General Sherman said that all freed men were entitled to 40 acres of land, and that the government may even subsidize a mule. For a short period of time, this became an official policy, as Freedmen's Bureaus popped up all over the South to offer support, land, and education to freedmen and poor whites alike. Of course, this did not go over well with the wealthy-land owning whites who had long depended on slave labor to keep their plantations running. They did everything they could to prevent freedmen from succeeding in owning land and becoming educated.

Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule follows Pascal's makeshift family as they try to navigate this difficult time in American history, pursuing their dream of owning their own 40 acres of fertile southern land.

This book contains an amazing amount of content, painting a realistic picture of a period of history that is often glossed over in textbooks. It is easy in school, to think that the "walls [had come] tumbling down forever" immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation, but this book makes it clear that the fight for freedom raged on even after the war was over.

Occasionally, the language used to tell the book makes it difficult to follow. It is choppy and jumps around; however, the difficult language does not overshadow the major themes and deep discussion points brought up by young Pascal. As he ponders the true nature of freedom, the cruelty of human beings, and the injustices of his life, we are forced to examine his questions in the context of our own lives.