Homestead Act

Homestead Act

by Francisco Castro

United States federal law that gave about 160 acres in the North American West. Signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862

• Intended to liberalize the homesteading requirements of the Preemption Act of 1841.

• The South refused, fearing the increase in free farmers would threaten plantation slavery.

• George Henry Evans and Horace Greeley stand out as greatly responsible for the passage of the Homestead Act.

• The 160 acre farms created by the Homestead Act amounted to one quarter of a section of a township

• 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.

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.

Daniel Freeman as an older man

• By the end of the 19th century, over 570 million acres (about 2,300,000 km²) remained open to settlement, but very little of this was usable for agriculture.

• The Homestead Act helped to create more than 372,000 farms.

The end of homesteading

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 ended homesteading; the government believed that the best use of public lands was for them to remain in government control.

Alaska was an exception until 1986.

Ten percent of the land in the United States was settled under this law. The red on the map shows all

the homesteading states. The red portion of the map represents the 30 states that homesteaded.

The last claim under the Homestead Act was made by Kenneth Deardorff for 80 acres (32 Hectares) of land on the Stony River in southwestern Alaska in 1988.

Fraud and corporate use

• The intent of the Homestead Act was to grant land for agriculture.

• However, in some arid places (west of the Rocky Mountains) 640 acres was too little land for a liable farm, in these places, Homesteads were used to control resources, especially water.

There was no systematic method used to evaluate claims under the Homestead Act.

The Homestead Act, 1862-1962 : 4 cents, U.S. postage.

Stamp image based on the John Bakken sod house photograph, originally taken by John McCarthy, but children removed.

Shows man leaning on shovel looking at woman outside door of sod house. Actual stamp attached to lower right corner of enlarged color print.