Southern land owners who had sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War had to prove their loyalty to the Union in order to have their abandoned or confiscated property returned to them. After James Hicks swore an oath of allegiance to the United States, he petitioned for the return of his seized land, which was held by the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The Federal Government had established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands – better known as the Freedmen’s Bureau – after the Civil War to aid formerly enslaved people. One of the major activities of the Bureau was the leasing of abandoned and confiscated property.
The U.S. District Attorney ordered that all legal obstructions to the return of Hicks’s land be dismissed. This document granted the land to “James Hix and his heirs forever.”
