Aims of Homestead Act

What did the US government want to do?

To encourage the settlement of the west by individual family farmers.

What did the US government not want?

The rich landowners buying up all the land in the west.

How was the land accessible?

It was very cheap

What could most, or would be, American citizens do?

File a claim for land

What did the homesteaders have to do?

They had to be able to prove they had lived on the land and improved it.

What weren’t homesteaders allowed?

More than 1 claim.

How much land was homesteaded by 1876?

Over 6 million acres of federal land.

How much was homesteaded by the end of the Act in the 1930s?

80 millions acres

What was an important pull factor for immigration to the USA?

The promise for free land

What was a significance in the Homestead Act?

Encouraging white settlement of the Plains, especially Nebraska and half all settled land in Nebraska was homesteaded.