Homestead Act

I THESIS STATEMENT

The Homestead Act of 1862 made surveyed lands obtainable to homesteaders. The act stated that men and women over the age of 21, unmarried women who were head of households and married men under the age of 21, who did not own over 160 acres of land anywhere, were citizens or intended on becoming citizens of the United States, were eligible to homestead. This paper will show how the Homestead Act came to be enacted, who the homesteaders were and the effects of the Homestead Act on the pioneers.

II WHAT EVENTS LEAD TO THE HOMESTEAD ACT?

The distribution of Government lands had been an issue since the Revolutionary War. Early methods for allocating unsettled land outside the original 13 colonies were chaotic. Boundaries were established by stepping off plots from geographical landmarks. As a result, overlapping claims and border disputes were common. The Land Ordinance of 1785 finally implemented a standardized system of Federal land surveys that eased boundary conflicts. Territories were divided into a 6-mile square called a township prior to settlement. The township was divided into 36 sections, each measuring 1 square mile or 640 acres each. Sale of public land was viewed as a means to generate revenue for the Government rather than as a way to encourage settlement. Initially, an individual was required to purchase a full section of land at the cost of $1 per acre for 640 acres. The investment needed to purchase these large plots and the massive amount of physical labor required to clear the land for agriculture were often insurmountable obstacles.

According to all available indexes of growth, the United States grew enormously between 1840 and 1860. The continental limits of the nation were reached, with the exception of Alaska, by 1854 through the acquisition of the Mexican Cession territory and the Gadsden Purchase. The population continued its upward spiral, moving from slightly over seventeen million in 1840 to over thirty-eight million in 1860. New canals, steamboats, turnpikes, and railroads knit the nation together into an integrated economic unit. Hundred of thousands of people crossed the Atlantic to take up residence in the dynamic nation, while other hundreds of thousands moved into the Western regions of the country.

Legislative efforts to improve homesteading laws faced opposition on multiple fronts. Southern majorities in Congress consistently blocked legislation called for by the other sections of the country because they worried that rapid settlement of western territories would give rise to new states populated by small farmers opposed to slavery. Others were concerned that factories in the East would lose their supply of cheap labor if workers were lured westward by the availability of small blocks of land at low prices. Congressmen from the West argued that settlers were performing a patriotic service when they tamed the wilderness and advanced the frontier.

For decades, the halls of Congress echoed with debates about the minimal price at which land should be sold and the minimal acreage that a buyer should be required to purchase. Gradually, Congress decreased the minimum unit from 640 acres in 1785 to 320 acres in 1800, 160 acres in 1804, 80 acres in 1820, and 40 acres from 1832 until 1862, when the Homestead Act gave 160 acres free to anyone who would live on the land and cultivate it for five years.

III PASSAGE OF THE HOMESTEAD ACT

The Pre-emption Act of 1841 legitimized squatting by letting farmers claim unsurveyed plots and later buy them from the government. Pre-emption became the national policy, but supporting legislation was blocked. Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee took up the cause in 1840. Southerners opposed Johnson's land giveaway as benefiting working-class whites who were unlikely to vote slavery into the new states. Three times the House of Representatives passed homestead legislation (1852, 1854, and 1859) but on each occasion, the Senate defeated the measure. In 1860, a homestead bill providing Federal land grants to western settlers was passed by Congress only to be vetoed by President Buchanan.

With the secession of the Southern states from the Union and the removal of the slavery issue, finally in 1862, the Homestead Act was passed and signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The new law established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: filing an application, improving the land, and filing for deed of title. Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land. For the next 5 years, the homesteader had to live on the land and improve it by building a 12 by 14 dwelling and growing crops. After 5 years, the homesteader could file for his patent (or deed of title) by submitting proof of residency and the required improvements to a local land office. Local land offices forwarded the paperwork to the General Land Office in Washington, DC, along with a final certificate of eligibility. The case file was examined, and valid claims were granted patent to the land free and clear, except for a small registration fee. Title could also be acquired after a 6-month residency and trivial improvements, provided the claimant paid the government $1.25 per acre. After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they served from the residency requirements.

Before the Act was repealed in 1934, over 1.6 million homestead applications were processed and more than 270 million acres - 10 percent of all U.S. lands - passed into the hands of individuals. The Homestead Act was amended many times over the years. It was repealed on October 21, 1976, except that the effective date for public lands in Alaska was extended ten years to October 21, 1986.

IV HOMESTEADERS

The Homestead Act of 1862 was largely irrelevant in the Midwest, where most of the land had been bought and paid for before the act was passed. Much of the eastern Midwest was purchased during the land boom of the 1830's, and most of Iowa and Wisconsin during the land boom of the 1850's. By 1862, most of the land that was still available for homesteaders was in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas.

In the early days, few people bought more than the minimal acreage required by law, because farm machinery was primitive, and a man with horses could not cultivate more than 40 to 80 acres even if