THE HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862

DEFINITION

• Act of Congress that made public lands in the West available to people without payment, usually sold by plots of 160 acres, meant to be used as farms.

STATES EFFECTED

• Nebraska was the most effected by The Homestead Act.
• Followed by, in order from most affected to least affected; North Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Minnesota, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Alabama.

AMOUNT OF LAND AND PEOPLE

• Land: more than 270 million acres
• People: 1.6 million settlers

HOMESTEADERS

• Homesteaders: a settler under the Homestead Act.

FARMING

• If you farmed the 160 for five years, then after that you owned the land.

FARMING EQUIPMENT

• Plow for tilling dirt.
• Harrow for leveling and seeding.
• Cradle scythe for harvesting hay and grain.
• Other hand tools such as an axe.

POSITIVE EFFECTS

• Helped encourage people to settle the West.
• Many resources we found such as; gold, silver, coal, and oil.
• Gave African American a chance to start a new life.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

• Many settlers died from wether conditions and sometimes Indians.
• Women were faced with lack of interference with other people on the frontier and often turned towards prostitution.
• Settlers decimated a large part of the Indian population when settling the frontier.

OUR THOUGHTS

• We have concluded that the Homestead Act was more positive than negative. In a way that it greatly benefited our country by helping to settle the West and gave former slaves an opportunity to start over, but at the same time it destroyed the Indian populations.

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