What is a government mule?
- Thread starter Tastycles
- Start date
"It's what you get beat like when you're in the middle of a slobberknocker, and if you don't have the guts to stick around you might run like a scalded dog with a case of the limber tail."
An interesting, if likely spurious, explanation courtesy of Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=government+mule&defid=2056284
An interesting, if likely spurious, explanation courtesy of Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=government+mule&defid=2056284
"I was sitting in the geology laboratory at the university on Monday
when the answer came to me. We were studying topographic maps which
are divided by the federal land survey, which was conducted in the
late 1800s, into quadrants known as 'townships' and 'ranges.'
With me so far? Good.
When you divide these squares in quarters, you have 40-acre plots.
This is where it gets interesting: our teacher informed us that
Arkansas once had a policy known as the 'forty acres and a mule
promise.' Turns out the state offered black settlers forty acres and
one mule at no cost shortly after the Civil War as a tenet of the
Reconstruction policy.
Basically, the government started giving people 'government mules' to
aid in the plowing of the fertile Arkansas soil. Here's the problem:
recently-freed slaves would come to Arkansas and get their land and a
government mule, but received no money for seed, housing or land
development.
In short, these poor people ended up with nothing but a chunk of land
and a government mule. Which, of course, pissed them off.
According to my instructor, government mules became the scapegoats of
the settlers' frustrations (and appetites). Hence, the people would
sometimes savagely beat their mules in defiance of the two-faced
government and when times became lean, often the mules would become
stew meat."
when the answer came to me. We were studying topographic maps which
are divided by the federal land survey, which was conducted in the
late 1800s, into quadrants known as 'townships' and 'ranges.'
With me so far? Good.
When you divide these squares in quarters, you have 40-acre plots.
This is where it gets interesting: our teacher informed us that
Arkansas once had a policy known as the 'forty acres and a mule
promise.' Turns out the state offered black settlers forty acres and
one mule at no cost shortly after the Civil War as a tenet of the
Reconstruction policy.
Basically, the government started giving people 'government mules' to
aid in the plowing of the fertile Arkansas soil. Here's the problem:
recently-freed slaves would come to Arkansas and get their land and a
government mule, but received no money for seed, housing or land
development.
In short, these poor people ended up with nothing but a chunk of land
and a government mule. Which, of course, pissed them off.
According to my instructor, government mules became the scapegoats of
the settlers' frustrations (and appetites). Hence, the people would
sometimes savagely beat their mules in defiance of the two-faced
government and when times became lean, often the mules would become
stew meat."
