The Trust Has Spoken: Freedmen Declare Jurisdiction Over Abandoned and Vacant Lands in Former Confederate States

Freedmen Nation
Jul 18
2 min read

Today marks a significant and historic step in the continued recovery of what was promised—but never delivered—to the descendants of American chattel slavery.

The Freedmen Reparations Fund Trust has formally issued a Declaration of Jurisdictional Standing Over Abandoned and Vacant Lands in Former Confederate States. This document affirms what has long been understood by those of us who descend from the Freedmen class: that there are lands—left behind, unclaimed, and unremedied—that carry the memory of unpaid labor, interrupted inheritance, and broken wartime promises.

What the Declaration Does

This Declaration asserts that the Trust holds cultural and reparative jurisdiction over all abandoned and historically unremediated lots in the eleven former Confederate states that:

Were confiscated or vacated during the Civil War,
Were inventoried by the Freedmen’s Bureau,
Or remain off-grid in municipal or state systems but are tied to Freedmen labor, settlement, or community life.

These lands are now formally claimed under non-commercial, fiduciary governance by the Trust—not for resale or speculation, but for:

Cultural preservation,
Historical truth-telling,
And eventual reparative reclamation.

Why This Matters

This is more than a symbolic act. It:

Creates a legal and cultural footprint for future recovery efforts,
Prevents further erasure by developers, nonprofits, and state agencies who build on these lands without acknowledgment,
Activates the right of descendants to govern and protect their inheritance through organized stewardship, not silence.

The Trust is also building a Registry of Contested and Vacant Freedmen Landholdings, where Verified Freedmen may contribute family documents, property histories, and site claims tied to Freedmen settlements and postbellum legacies.

Legal and Moral Foundation

This action is backed by four publicly filed governance instruments:

Declaration of Naming Rights and Symbol Protection
Affidavit of Cultural Classification Authority
Declaration of Jurisdictional Standing Over Freedmen Identity
FOIA Response from the U.S. Department of Treasury – Case No. 2025-FO-00112

These filings affirm the Trust’s standing, authority, and protective mandate to act on behalf of Verified Freedmen in matters of cultural inheritance and reparative governance.

What Happens Next

We invite:

Verified Freedmen to come forward with documentation of lost or disputed family land
Genealogists and historians to assist in documenting and mapping Freedmen settlement areas
Supporters and donors to help us formally launch the land registry and fund future reclamation efforts

We are not waiting on permission to do what is morally and historically right. The Trust has acted.