Editing Skidaway Island, Georgia (section)

==History==

It is uncertain why the name "Skidaway" was applied to this island. The name may relate to one in [[Yamacraw]] or another Native American Creek language. In his 1967 publication ''How Georgia Got Her Names'', Hal E. Brinkley speculated it might be an Anglicized form of Scenawki, the wife of the Yamacraw chief [[Tomochichi]], for whom Georgia's founder [[James Oglethorpe]] named the island.<ref>{{cite book | url=http://www.kenkrakow.com/gpn/s.pdf| title=Georgia Place-Names: Their History and Origins | publisher=Winship Press | author=Krakow, Kenneth K. | year=1975 | location=Macon, GA | pages=206–207 | isbn=0-915430-00-2}}</ref>

Before the [[American Civil War]], planters farmed on the island using enslaved labor. On January 15, 1965, during the final year of the conflict, U.S. General [[William T. Sherman]] issued [[Forty Acres and a mule|Special Field Order, No. 15 (series 1865)]], reallocating plantation lands to some formerly enslaved people, whom he freed pursuant to the [[Emancipation Proclamation]], in plots of land no larger than {{convert|40|acre|ha}}.<ref>[http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/sfo15.htm Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi]</ref> Land records show many such plots issued on Skidmore Island beginning on April 11, 1865, two days after C.S.A. General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, and continuing though that summer and early fall, despite the death of President Abraham Lincoln, and before Georgia's readmission to the Union and resumption of civil authority there.<ref>https://revealnews.org/article/40-acres-and-a-lie/></ref><ref>https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/40-acres-reconstruction-freedmen-bureau-stolen-land/</ref> Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson, opposed such transfers, as would various courts, especially since no legislation supported it. During the [[Reconstruction era]] federal and state policy emphasized wage labor, not land ownership, for black people. Almost all land allocated during the war was restored to its pre-war white owners.<ref>{{Cite web |last=fultonk |date=2013-01-06 |title=The Truth Behind '40 Acres and a Mule' {{!}} African American History Blog |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/ |access-date=2024-10-20 |website=The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross |language=en-US}}</ref>

In a March 2019 referendum, Skidaway Island voters overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have incorporated their community as the City of Skidaway Island. The island remains unincorporated.<ref name="SkidawayRef1">{{cite web|url=http://www.wtoc.com/2019/03/19/special-election-decide-skidaway-island-incorporation/|accessdate=2019-04-26|title=Skidaway Island incorporation vote|publisher=WTOC-TV, Savannah GA|date=2019-03-19}}</ref>