Homesteading

The effect of the Homestead Act, which gave settlers free farms under certain conditions, has been exaggerated. After years of agitation, the Homestead Act passed Congress on May 20, 1862. It provided that any American citizen or alien 21 years of age who filed papers declaring his or her intent to become a citizen could settle on 160 acres (a quarter of a section) of public land and, after residing on and cultivating it for five years, would gain title to that land. Since a married couple could only obtain 160 acres and a single man and a single woman could each obtain 160 acres, some delayed marriage and lived in a home straddling the dividing line of their adjourning properties.

Advocates of the Homestead Act hoped it would provide homes in the West for poor urban laborers and tenant farmers in the East. They were disappointed; it did not provide relief for the needy. Most of the land available for homesteads was located west of the Mississippi, and the cost of moving a family hundreds or thousands of miles was prohibitive for workers and tenants who could hardly provide for their families and had no savings. Once on the land, shelter had to be built, draft animals and implements had to be acquired, and two or three years of “sod busting” had to be done before the land would yield crops sufficient to support a family. On top of these difficulties, most urban workers knew nothing about farming, and much of the available land was arid and suitable only for grazing. To raise cattle successfully, 160 acres was entirely too small. Younger sons of middle-income farmers were better equipped to succeed at homesteading, but even they found it difficult; before 1890 two-thirds of all homesteaders failed.

The overwhelming majority of settlers purchased their land from either RAILROADS or land speculators, because they owned the land most fertile and closest to transportation. Railroads had received huge land grants to encourage their construction in sparsely settled areas and had grabbed the best land, while speculators using dummy settlers took advantage of loopholes in the Homestead Act and engrossed large amounts of desirable land. Probably only one-eighth and possibly only one-tenth of the family farms established from 1870 to 1900 were acquired by genuine settlers under the terms of the Homestead Act. The cost of land was not exorbitant: Since the railroads wanted settlers producing freight along their right of way, they sold their land relatively cheaply, and land speculators to remain competitive did the same. Given the expense of establishing a farm, it made economic sense to buy productive land rather than cultivate poor, albeit free, land. Nevertheless, the dream of providing free farms to settlers was largely frustrated while land speculators and railroads made a profit.

Further reading: Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer's Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1945).