The Homestead Act is one of several United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to up to 160 acres (1/4 section, 65 hectares) of undeveloped federal land outside the original 13 colonies. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application and evidence of improvements to a federal land office. The occupant also had to be 18 or older and had to live on the land for five years.
The original Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862.<1><2><3><4><5><6> Because much of the prime low-lying alluvial land along rivers had been homesteaded by the turn of the twentieth century, a major update called the Enlarged Homestead Act was passed in 1909. It targeted land suitable for dryland farming, increasing the number of acres to 320.<7> In 1916, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act targeted settlers seeking 640 acres (260 ha) of public land for ranching purposes.<7>
Only about 40 percent of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it and obtain title to their homestead land.<8> Eventually 1.6 million homesteads were granted and 270,000,000 acres (420,000 sq mi) of federal land were privatized between 1862 and 1934, a total of 10% of all lands in the United States.<9>
In 1815, President James Madison ordered the United States government to survey the lands
of the Louisiana Purchase. This survey was needed because settlers wanted to move westward
and take advantage of settlings on the millions of acres that were added to the United States in 1803. Many of these new settlers were veterans of the War of 1812, who received military bounty land grants after their service in the conflict. Two million of the acres that were given away were located between the St. Francis and Arkansas rivers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Lawshttps://www.arkansasheritage.com/education-information/educators/pdfs/Surveying_the_Louisiana_Purchase_1815.pdfJust a few examples about how America got its economic foothold -- the government rewarded those who fought in the early wars -- Revolutionary War and 1812 for example with land in lieu of cash -- and the government encouraged people to claim a limited amount of land, work it, live on it and sometimes pay a small amount or sometimes just claim it.
That's the real story. The right-wingers talk about socialism on the one hand and deify Abraham Lincoln on the other. They don't know what they are talking about. The land grants could be characterized as a huge welfare program or as the key to developing the country. This is a little piece of history that many people ignore. But offspring of the Old Settlers as some communities know them, understand that their ancestors were either given land, paid land for services, or bought it at very, very low prices provided they were willing to develop wilderness into land useful to humans. Whatever you may say about the environmental impact of this truth about our history as a nation -- this is the way it was.
Homesteading was done in Oklahoma
The preparations for the settlement of Oklahoma had been complete, even to the slightest detail, for weeks before the opening day. The Santa Fe Railway, which runs through Oklahoma north and south, was prepared to take any number of people from its handsome station at Arkansas City, Kansas, and to deposit them in almost any part of Oklahoma as soon as the law allowed; thousands of covered wagons were gathered in camps on all sides of the new Territory waiting for the embargo to be lifted. In its picturesque aspects the rush across the border at noon on the opening day must go down in history as one of the most noteworthy events of Western civilization. At the time fixed, thousands of hungry home-seekers, who had gathered from all parts of the country, and particularly from Kansas and Missouri, were arranged in line along the border, ready to lash their horses into furious speed in the race for fertile spots in the beautiful land before them. The day was one of perfect peace. Overhead the sun shown down from a sky as fair and blue as the cloudless heights of Colorado. The whole expanse of space from zenith to horizon was spotless in its blue purity. The clear spring air, through which the rolling green billows of the promised land could be seen with unusual distinctness for many miles, was as sweet and fresh as the balmy atmosphere of June among New Hampshire's hills.
As the expectant home-seekers waited with restless patience, the clear, sweet notes of a cavalry bugle rose and hung a moment upon the startled air. It was noon. The last barrier of savagery in the United States was broken down. Moved by the same impulse, each driver lashed his horses furiously; each rider dug his spurs into his willing steed, and each man on foot caught his breath hard and darted forward. A cloud of dust rose where the home-seekers had stood in line, and when it had drifted away before the gentle breeze, the horses and wagons and men were tearing across the open country like fiends. The horsemen had the best of it from the start. It was a fine race for a few minutes, but soon the riders began to spread out like a fan, and by the time they had reached the horizon they were scattered about as far as eye could see. Even the fleetest of the horsemen found upon reaching their chosen localities that men in wagons and men on foot were there before them. As it was clearly impossible for a man on foot to outrun a horseman, the inference is plain that Oklahoma had been entered hours before the appointed time. Notwithstanding the assertions of the soldiers that every boomer had been driven out of Oklahoma, the fact remains that the woods along the streams within Oklahoma were literally full of people Sunday night. Nine-tenths of these people made settlement upon the land illegally. The other tenth would have done so had there been any desirable land left to settle upon. This action on the part of the first claim-holders will cause a great deal of land litigation in the future, as it is not to be expected that the man who ran his horse at its utmost speed for ten miles only to find a settler with an ox team in quiet possession of his chosen farm will tamely submit to this plain infringement of the law.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/landrush.htmOur government traditionally helped its citizens. Giving away chunks of land is what made it possible for penniless people with ambition and a work ethic to build a great nation. But the role of the government in simply giving away its most precious assets to its people is often forgotten.
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