Homestead Acts

The Homestead Act of 1862 was a United States federal law that gave one quarter of a section of a township (160 acres, or about 65 hectares) of undeveloped land in the American West to any family head or person who was at least 21 years of age, provided he lived on it for five years and built a house of a minimum of 12 by 14 inches, or allowed the family head to buy it for $1.25 per acre ($0.48/km²) after six months. To avoid penalizing men who were serving in the army, the length of military service was deducted from the required five year residence period for veterans. [1]

The act was signed into law by President Lincoln on May 20, 1862.

The Reason for the Homestead Act

The "yeoman farmer" ideal was a powerful ideal in American political history, and plans for expanding their numbers through a homestead law were agitated in the 1850s. The South resisted, fearing the increase in free farmers would threaten plantation slavery. Two men stand out as greatly responsible for the passage of the Homestead Act: George Henry Evans and Horace Greeley. Agitation for free land started in 1844. Several bills were introduced unsuccessfully until 1862. After the South seceded and their delegations left Congress in 1861, the way was clear and the act was passed.

History

By the end of the 19th century, over 570 million acres (2,300,000 km²) remained open to settlement, but very little of this was usable for agriculture. As the frontier moved west onto the arid Great Plains, the amount of land a homesteader was allowed to claim was changed to 640 acres (2.6 km²), a full section.

In 1906, the Forest Homestead Act was passed. The Homestead Act of 1912 reduced the homestead requirement from five to three years.

Although a few isolated pockets remained into the 1950s, most of the desirable land in the lower 48 states had been taken up by 1910 or so. Homesteading continued on a small scale in Alaska until 1986.

In Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, homesteading cut into the access of the large ranches to water. In response, ranchers (themselves or their cowboys) homesteaded prime spots to reserve water access. At times, tensions escalated into violence, conflicts called range wars, for example, the Johnson County War in Wyoming.

First claim

The first claim under the Homestead Act was made by Daniel Freeman for a farm near Beatrice, Nebraska on January 1, 1863; the site is preserved as the Homestead National Monument of America.

Last claim

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 ended homesteading, the government believing that the best use of public lands was for them to remain in government control. The only exception to this new policy was in Alaska, for which the law of the land allowed homesteading until 1986.

The last claim under the Homestead Act was made by Kenneth Deardorff for 80 acres (32 hectares) of land on the Stony River in south-western Alaska. He fulfilled all requirements of the Homestead Act in 1979, but he did not actually receive his deed until May 1988. Therefore, he is the very last person to receive the title to land claimed under the provisions of the Homestead Act.

Results of Act

The Homestead Act helped settlers create more than 372,000 farms. By 1900, the settlers had filed 600,000 claims for more than 80 million acres (320,000 km²) of land in the west under the Homestead Act. The leading historian Paul Gates has concluded, "their noble purpose and the great part they played in enabling nearly a million and half people to acquire farm land, much of which developed into farm homes, far outweigh the misuse to which they were put."

In 1871, 29,000 claims were made in Kansas under the Homestead Act. By 1885–1886, this number had leaped to 43,000 claims.

Fraud and corporate use

The intent of the Homestead Act was to grant land for agriculture. However, in the arid areas west of the Rocky Mountains, 640 acres was generally too little land for a viable farm (at least prior to major public investments in irrigation projects). In these areas, homesteads were instead used to control resources, especially water. A common scheme was for an individual acting as a front for a large cattle operation to file for a homestead surrounding a water source under the pretense that the land was being used as a farm. Once granted, use of that water source would be denied to other cattle ranchers, effectively closing off the adjacent public land to competition. This method could also be used to gain ownership of timber and oil-producing land, as the Federal government charged royalties for extraction of these resources from public lands. On the other hand, homesteading schemes were generally pointless for land containing "locatable minerals", such as gold and silver, which could be controlled through mining claims and for which the Federal government did not charge royalties.

There was no systematic method used to evaluate claims under the Homestead Act. Land offices would rely on affidavits from witnesses that the claimant had lived on the land for the required period of time and made the required improvements. In practice, some of these witnesses were bribed or otherwise in cahoots with the claimant. In any case the land was turned into farms.

International derivations

The act was later copied with some modifications by Canada in the form of the Dominion Lands Act, and similar acts, usually termed the Selection Acts were passed in the various Australian colonies in the 1860s, beginning in 1861 in New South Wales.

See also

• Donation Land Claim Act of 1850
• Public Land Survey System
• Land grants

Further reading

• Dick, Everett. The Lure of the Land: A Social History of the Public Lands from the Articles of Confederation to the New Deal (1970)
• Gates, Paul W. The Jeffersonian Dream: Studies in the History of American Land Policy and Development (1996)
• Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill (1986)
• Lause, Mark A. Young America: Land, Labor, and the Repubican Community (2005)
• Phillips, Sarah T. "Antebellum Agricultural Reform, Republican Ideology, and Sectional Tension." Agricultural History 2000 74(4): 799-822. Issn: 0002-1482
• Richardson, Heather Cox The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997)
• Robbins, Roy M. Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936 (1942)

External links

• Library of Congress: Homestead Act
• Homestead National Monument of America - National Park Service
• Homestead Act of 1862 - National Archives and Records Administration

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