Homestead Act

Homestead Act

The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a "homestead", at little or no cost. In the United States, this usually consisted of grants totaling 160 acres (65 hectares, or one-fourth of a section) of unappropriated (that is, reserved for no other purpose) federal land within the boundaries of the public land states. An extension of the Homestead Principle in law, the United States Homestead Acts were originally proposed as an expression of the "Free Soil" policy of Northerners who wanted individual farmers to own and operate their own farms, as opposed to Southern slave-owners who could use gangs of slaves to economic advantage.

The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves; was 21 or older; or the head of a family, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. There was also a residency requirement. The Kincaid Amendment granted a full section (640 acres) to homesteaders in western Nebraska. The amended homestead act, the Enlarged Homestead Act, was passed in 1909 and increased the acreage to 320. Another amended act, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act, was passed in 1916 and again increased the land involved, this time to 640 acres.