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US laws allowing ownership of unclaimed land

The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than 160 million acres (64,749,760 km2) of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the United States, was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River. These acts were the first sovereign decisions of post war North–South capitalist cooperation in the United States. An extension of the homestead principle in law, the Homestead Acts were 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 wanted to buy up large tracts of land and use slave labor, thereby shutting out free white farmers. For a number of years individual Congressmen put forward bills providing for homesteading, but it wasn't until 1862 that the first homestead act was passed. The Homestead Act of 1862 opened up millions of acres. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the federal government of the United States could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. Several additional laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 sought to address land ownership inequalities in the south during Reconstruction. It explicitly included Black Americans and encouraged them to participate, and, although rampant discrimination, systemic barriers, and bureaucratic inertia considerably slowed Black gains, the 1866 law was part of the reason that within a generation after its passage, by 1900, one quarter of all Southern Black farmers were farm owners. Most homesteading occurred during the period 1900–1930.

Land grant laws similar to the Homestead Acts had been proposed by northern Republicans prior to Civil War but they had been repeatedly blocked in Congress by Democrats who wanted western lands open for purchase by slave owners. The Homestead Act of 1860 passed in Congress but was vetoed by President James Buchanan, a Democrat. After the Southern states seceded from the Union in 1861 (and their representatives had left Congress), the bill passed and was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln (May 20, 1862). Daniel Freeman became the first person to file a claim under the new act. Between 1862 and 1934, the federal government granted 1.6 million homesteads and distributed of federal land for private ownership. This was a total of 10% of all land in the United States. Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986. About 40% of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it and obtain title to their homesteaded land after paying a small fee in cash. Homestead laws depleted Native American resources as much of the land they relied on was taken by the federal government and sold to settlers. Native ancestral lands had been limited through history, mainly through land allotments and reservations, causing a gradual decrease in this indigenous land. Many of these land grabs occurred during and after treaty negotiations between indigenous tribes and the United States. Native Americans often traded their land in exchange for citizenship and civil rights. Due to the United States' economic power, these tribes had little leverage and millions of acres of land were transferred from their ownership. It was difficult for indigenous people to legally challenge this infringement because they lacked legal rights and legal standing. These treaties were used to naturalize and civilize Native Americans. As an indirect, de facto way to secure the dispossessed land, the US government allowed late homesteading during the early twentieth century. This acted as a way to solidify settlements and permanently disrupt tribal land practices in the face of backlash. This Homestead Acts also resulted in tensions between settlers and indigenous people, partly due to settlers moving onto indigenous territory while it was still occupied. Settlements excused Indian removal and culminated in multiple wars waged by settler militia. Also involved in the acts were Buffalo soldiers, African American soldiers that were key in building the American frontier in the West. They often engaged in wars with Native Americans, led by the government, to take over indigenous land.

The Preemption Act of 1841 allowed settlers to claim up to 160 acres of federal land for themselves and prevent its sale to others including large landowners or corporations; they paid only a low fixed price of $1.25 per acre ($3.09 per hectare). To qualify, a person had to be either 21 years old or a "head of household" (such as a parent or surviving sibling supporting a family), a citizen or an immigrant declaring to become a citizen, and a resident on that land for a minimum of 14 months. To get permanent title to the land, the person had to accomplish certain actions, such as continue to reside on it or improve it for at least five years; they could not leave or abandon it for more than six months at a time.

The Donation Land Claim Act allowed settlers to claim land in the Oregon Territory, then including the modern states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Wyoming. The Oregon Donation Land Claim Act was passed in 1850 and allowed white settlers to claim 320 acres or 640 to married couples between 1850 and 1855 when the act was repealed. Before it was repealed in 1855, the land was sold for $1.25 per acre. After the creation of the Oregon territory in 1848, the US government had passed the most generous land distribution bill in US history. The Oregon Land Donation Act of 1850 had many negative effects on Indigenous people as well as Black people in the Pacific Northwest. Not only did the act use the land taken away from the Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest, but the act also barred Black citizens from owning land and real estate. The act guaranteed land for White settlers and "half breed" Indian men to the Oregon territory. This act followed the passing of the 1848 territorial organic act which allowed any white settler to claim a maximum of six hundred and forty acres. The Land Donation Act, however, also acknowledged women's property rights due to Congress allowing the donation of four hundred acres to settlers—land that could be claimed by heads of households—including women. This act differed from the Homestead Act of 1866 due to the ineligibility of Black citizens from applying.

The "yeoman farmer" ideal of Jeffersonian democracy was still a powerful influence in American politics during the 1840–1850s, with many politicians believing a homestead act would help increase the number of "virtuous yeomen". The Free Soil Party of 1848–52, and the new Republican Party after 1854, demanded that the new lands opening up in the west be made available to independent farmers, rather than wealthy planters who would develop it with the use of slaves forcing the yeomen farmers onto marginal lands. Southern Democrats had continually fought (and defeated) previous homestead law proposals, as they feared free land would attract European immigrants and poor Southern whites to the west. The intent of the Homestead Act of 1862 was to reduce the cost of homesteading under the Preemption Act; after the South seceded and their delegates left Congress in 1861, the Republicans and supporters from the upper South passed a homestead act signed by Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, which went into effect on Jan. 1st, 1863. Its leading advocates were Andrew Johnson George Henry Evans and Horace Greeley. George Henry Evans famously coined the phrase "Vote Yourself a Farm" in a bid to garner support for the movement. In addition to the previous requirement in the Preemption Act of being either 21 years old or the head of a family, the 1862 act also allowed for persons under 21 who had served in the regular or volunteer forces of the U. S. army or navy for at least 14 days during "the existence of an actual war domestic or foreign". The new act also required that the person "has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies"; unlike the 1848 and 1850 laws, it did not have any provision mentioning race. The act insured adult U. S. citizens 160 acres of land from the government to "improve their plot by cultivating the land". The Homestead act expanded, rather than changed, the 1841 Preemption Act. The claimed homestead could include the same land which they had previously filed a preemption claim (on up to 160 acres at $1.25 per acre, or up to 80 acres of subdivided and surveyed land at $2.50 per acre), and they could expand their current ownership to contiguous adjacent land up to 160 acres total. The homestead application must be "made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry [onto public land] is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever". It was not very successful, as even the low prices and fees were often too much for the applicants to afford. The land made available was also mostly undeveloped forestry, and only white people had the means to make them productive.

The Timber Culture Act granted up to 160 acres of land to a homesteader who would plant at least 40 acres (revised to 10) of trees over a period of several years. This quarter section could be added to an existing homestead claim, offering a total of 320 acres to a settler.

The 1862 Homestead Act did not include indigenous peoples, so Congress passed the Indian Homestead Act to give Native family heads the opportunity to purchase homesteads from unclaimed public lands. This was under the condition that the individual relinquished their tribal identity and relations, along with the land improvement requirements. The federal land title was not officially granted to Native Americans until a period of five years had passed. Because the US government did not issue fee waivers, many poor non reservation Natives were unable to pay filing fees to claim homesteads. Access to such homesteads was further complicated by delays in resolving border disputes due to distance and discord between the US Land Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This made white settlements easier to finalize.

Recognizing that the Sandhills of north central Nebraska required more than 160 acres for a claimant to support a family, Congress passed the Kinkaid Act, which granted larger homestead tracts, up to 640 acres, to homesteaders in Nebraska.

This act allowed homesteads within Forest Reserves (created from 1891 on) and National Forests (from 1905? on), responding to opponents of the nation's Forest Reserves who felt land suited for agriculture was being withheld from private development. Homestead applications were reviewed by the U. S. Forest Service (created in 1905). While at first five years residency was required (per the 1862 Act), in 1913 this act was amended to allow proving up in just three years.

Because by the early 1900s much of the prime low lying alluvial land along rivers had been homesteaded, the Enlarged Homestead Act was passed in 1909. To enable dryland farming, it increased the number of acres for a homestead to given to farmers who accepted more marginal lands (especially in the Great Plains), which could not be easily irrigated. A massive influx of these new farmers, combined with inappropriate cultivation techniques and misunderstanding of the ecology, led to immense land erosion and eventually the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

In 1916, the Stock Raising Homestead Act was passed for settlers seeking of public land for ranching purposes. 4,000 previously classified Small Tracts were offered at public auction at fair market value, circa 1958, by the Los Angeles Office of BLM. had to be the head of the household or at least twenty one years old. They had to live on the designated land, build a home, make improvements, and farm it for a minimum of five years. The filing fee was eighteen dollars (or ten to temporarily hold a claim to the land). >

Settlers found land and filed their claims at the regional land office, usually in individual family units, although others formed closer knit communities. Often, the homestead consisted of several buildings or structures besides the main house. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave rise later to a new phenomenon, large land rushes, such as the Oklahoma Land Runs of the 1880s and '90s.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 ended homesteading; by that time, federal government policy had shifted to retaining control of western public lands. The only exception to this new policy was in Alaska, for which the law allowed homesteading until 1986.

The Homestead Acts were sometimes abused, but historians continue to debate the extent. In the 1950s and 1960s, historians Fred Shannon, Roy Robbins, and Paul Wallace Gates emphasized fraudulent episodes, and historians largely turned away from the issue. In recent decades, however, the argument has mostly been that on the whole fraud was a relatively minor element and that strongly positive impacts regarding women and the family have only recently been appreciated. Robert Higgs argues that the Homestead Act induced no long term misallocation of resources. In 1995, a random survey of 178 members of the Economic History Association found that 70 percent of economists and 84 percent of economic historians disagreed with the statement "Nineteenth century U. S. land policy, which attempted to give away free land, probably represented a net drain on the productive capacity of the country." Some scholars believe the acreage limits were reasonable when the act was written but argue that no one understood the physical conditions of the plains. According to Hugh Nibley, much of the rainforest west of Portland, Oregon, was acquired by the Oregon Lumber Company by illegal claims under the Act.

Despite the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi provisions for sale of land, the Māori Land Court decided that all land not cultivated by Māori was 'waste land' and belonged to the Crown without purchase. Most provinces in colonial New Zealand had Waste Lands Acts enacted between 1854 and 1877. The 1874 Waste Lands Act in Auckland Province used the term Homestead, with allocation administered by a Crown Lands Board. There was similar legislation in Westland. It gave up to , with settlers just paying the cost of a survey. They had to live there for five years, build a house and cultivate a third of the land, if already open, or a fifth if bush had to be cleared. The land was forfeited if they didn't clear enough bush. This contributed to rapid deforestation.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series describes her father and family claiming a homestead in Kansas, and later Dakota Territory. Wilder's daughter Rose Wilder Lane published a novel, Free Land, which describes the trials of homesteaders in what is now South Dakota. Willa Cather's novels O Pioneers! and My Ántonia feature families homesteading on the Great Plains. Oscar Micheaux's novel The Homesteader: a Novel (1917) is a semi autobiographical story of an African American homesteader in South Dakota shortly after the turn of the 20th century. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! is based in the Oklahoma land rush. The 1962 Elvis Presley musical film Follow That Dream, adapted from Pioneer, Go Home! (1959), features a family that homesteads in Florida. The movie Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, centers on the main characters' struggle to "obtain their 160 acres." The miniseries Centennial depicts the homestead development of an eastern Colorado town. The 1953 movie Shane depicts some early homesteaders in Wyoming opposed by a cattle baron who abuses, threatens and terrorizes them, calling them "pig farmers," "sod busters," "squatters" and other taunts and insults. When the rancher gets violent, the homesteaders are divided over whether to leave or to hold onto their claims. A drifter working on one of the homesteads reluctantly tries to take action. The 2016 film The Magnificent Seven, loosely adapted from the 1960 film of the same name, features Sam Chisolm, an African American U. S. Marshal raised on a homestead in Lincoln, Kansas. His family had been lynched in 1867 by former Confederate Army soldiers, hired by a robber baron to drive off settlers and free up real estate on the American frontier.