Homestead Act

Homestead Act 1862, passed by the U.S. Congress. It provided for the transfer of 160 acres (65 hectares) of unoccupied public land to each homesteader on payment of a nominal fee after five years of residence; land could also be acquired after six months of residence at $1.25 an acre. The government had previously sold land to settlers in the West for revenue purposes. As the West became politically stronger, however, pressure was increased upon Congress to guarantee free land to settlers (see Foot Resolution ; Preemption Act ). Several bills providing for free distribution of land were defeated in Congress; in 1860 a bill was passed in Congress but was vetoed by President Buchanan. With the ascendancy of the Republican party (which had committed itself to homestead legislation) and with the secession of the South (which had opposed free distribution of land), the Homestead Act, sponsored by Galusha A. Grow, became law. In 1976 it expired in all the states but Alaska, where it ended in 1986.

Homestead Act (1862) A US Act to encourage migration west. The Homestead Act gave any citizen who was head of a family and over 21 years of age 65 ha (160 acres) of surveyed public land for a nominal fee. Complete ownership could be attained after five years of continuous residence or by the payment of $1.25 per acre after a six-month period. While some 15,000 such homesteads were created during the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR years, speculation and the development of mechanized large-scale agriculture reduced the effectiveness of the Act in later years.

Homestead Act (1862).The Homestead Act was an attempt to transform the settlement of the public domain in the West. Passed by Congress in 1862 and put into operation on 1 January 1863, it offered actual settlers free title to 160 acres (a quarter section) after they had established residence and improved the land for five years. The act also sought to bind the West to the North during the Civil War. It altered the historic policy of cash sale of the public domain since the first Land Survey Act of 1785. Potential settlers saw the Homestead Act as a great boon, but much of the available land was in regions of insufficient rainfall such as the midcontinent High Plains. In fact, farmers west of the ninety‐eighth meridian (which passes through central Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas) needed four to eight times the allotted acres for successful settlement. In the 1870s, of some 1.3 million new farms carved out of the public domain, only around 320,000 were actual homestead entries. In some areas, fewer than a quarter of the original entries actually completed the process and established homesteads. Farm families that did persevere described the initial five years as their “period of starvation.” Homesteading was abused by fraudulent surveys and deceptive multiple claims by ranchers, lumbering interests, and other speculators. A series of legislative efforts between 1873 and 1916 to correct some of the problems resolved neither the climate realities nor the fraud. Dryland farming techniques, however, stabilized some High Plains settlement. Between 1863 and 1904, some 720,000 farms, totaling nearly 100 million acres, had been established under the Homestead Act. Homesteading of at least three million acres a year continued until the 1930s Depression.
See also Agriculture: 1770s to 1890; Agriculture: The “Golden Age” (1890s–1920); Land Policy, Federal; Livestock Industry; Northwest Ordinance; Republican Party.

Bibliography

Paul W. Gates , History of Public Land Law Development, 1968.
John Opie , The Law of the Land: 200 Years of American Farmland Policy, 1994.

John Opie