Land for Settlement
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Homestead Act |
During the same year that the Pacific Railroad Act was passed, Congress passed a bill called the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act made it easy for immigrants and displaced Southerners to own Western land. It said that people had to do the following to have 160 acres of land:
- Be at least 21-years-old
- Pay a $10 fee
- Be a citizen or have filed papers to become a citizen
- Build a house and live on the land at least six months of the year
- Farm the land for five consecutive years
Congress also passed the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862. Under the legislation, the federal government distributed land to state governments. States were supposed to use the land for agricultural colleges. Bankers and land speculators ended up buying much of the land. Under the Morrill Land Grant Act, the federal government established the Department of Agriculture. More legislation that made it attractive to settle in the West include the Timber Culture Act of 1873, which allowed settlers to receive 160 acres of land if they planted 40 acres of trees on the land, and the Desert Land Act of 1877, which allowed settlers to buy 640 acres at $1.25 per acre if they irrigated part of the land.
Millions of people, including foreign-born immigrants, claimed Western land. Even families headed by Southern women left widowed by the Civil War were among the homesteaders of the latter- third of the century. Some unscrupulous people would file claim to one block of land and establish themselves with a portable home so that they could file the paperwork to establish more claims, only to sell all of the land for steep profits years later.
Many of the people establishing farms under the Homestead Act had romantic images of the American dream. However, they learned that it was expensive to farm and maintain a homestead. The soil was dry and thick in many Midwest and Western states, and only certain crops grew well in dry climates. Special equipment was needed to plow the dense soil. For many of the pioneers, the land was all they had and it had to be used to provide basic needs. Only a small percentage of them were able to survive on the land they laid claim to.
Farming equipment