HOMESTEADERS

Homesteaders, sometimes credited with settling the West, were people who took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862. The first family to do so was that of Daniel Freeman (1826–1908), who made a land claim on January 1, 1863, the day the law went into effect. Freeman settled near Beatrice, Nebraska.

The Homestead Act of 1862 and its later modifications were collectively known as the Homestead Laws. During the mid-1800s, a debate arose over what the federal government should do with its newly acquired lands in the West. Those supporting the free land movement, led by the Free Soil Party, believed the government should grant lands in the West to whoever settled them. Conservatives believed the government should sell the lands to raise revenue. Southerners opposed free-soil policy, which they felt did not benefit their interests: they not only viewed the spread of agriculture in the West as a threat to their economic prosperity, but they feared that territories settled under a free-soil policy would eventually oppose slavery. Northerners tended to support the free-soil initiative, because the region's growing industrial sector would need new domestic markets for finished goods produced by the (industrialized) North.

Free land legislation that would improve the allowances of the earlier Pre-Emption Act of 1841 were introduced in Congress in 1851, 1852, and 1854; Southern Democrats succeeded in blocking passage each time. When the Republican Party was formed in 1854; in absorbing the Free Soil Party and its agenda, the Republicans proclaimed they would enact a "complete and satisfactory homestead measure." Soon after Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) won the election in 1860. In response, the Southern states made good on their threat to secede from the Union if the Republican party put its candidate in the White House. With Southern lawmakers out of Congress (with the exception of Tennessee Senator Andrew Johnson (1808–75), who had long supported free-soil initiatives and did not join his fellow Southerners in the act of secession), the Homestead Act was introduced and passed in Congress.

The legislation provided that anyone who was head of a family, or 21 years of age, or a veteran of just 14 days of active service in the U.S. armed forces, and who was a citizen or intended to become a citizen of the United States could receive up to 160 acres (64 hectares) of land. A homesteader was required to build on the land or cultivate it for a period of five years. Having only paid the initial, nominal filing fees, at the end of the five-year period the homesteader received a title to the land. In 1912, the required period of settlement was decreased to three years. Other modifications opened forest and grazing land for settlement and increased the maximum acreage to 640.

The Homestead Laws encouraged the rapid settlement of lands held in the public domain outside of the original 13 states (as well as Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas.) By 1932 more than one million homesteaders had developed more than 270 million acres (109 million hectares) of formerly public lands. In 1935 the remainder of public domain was withdrawn from homestead settlement. By 1962 all agricultural land that had been set aside for homesteading had been settled. Congress repealed the Homestead Laws in 1976 (except for laws pertaining to Alaska).

See also: Dry Farming, Homestead Act, Land-Grant Colleges, Prairie, Slavery, Sod Houses