US Federal Lands Owned By We the People

Abstract

We examine the history of US land policy, with a focus on the Homestead Acts, underscoring the precarious position of African Americans during the homesteading period.

We discuss the historical context and the shifting political landscape of the Civil War and Reconstruction era, providing the context for research on federal land policies and problems of race.

Past research is almost entirely outside of the agricultural and applied economics profession.

We believe that the applied economics discipline is especially suited for empirically examining the influence of federal land policies on past and present disparities and racial makeup of American agriculture.

For much of US history, popular understandings of economic opportunity have been connected to property rights and ownership (Acemoglu & Johnson, 2005; Cain et al., 2018; Hornbeck, 2010).

During the 19th century, when the United States was primarily a nation of farmers, land ownership was particularly important (Adams, 1969; Geisler, 1995).

As the United States pushed westward in the same era, the federal government became responsible for administering newly acquired territories and coordinating their settlement.

The Homestead Acts of 1862 and 1866, which granted free land to US citizens who would settle it, were important in this regard, enabling US expansion to the American West and offering the promise of economic prosperity (Lanza, 1990; Shanks, 2005).

Still, both Homestead Acts, as well as the settlement of the west, were entangled with issues of race and racism (Canaday et al., 2015; DeCanio, 1979; Edwards, 2019; Hernandez-Truyol & Day, 2001; Lanza, 1990).

We explore the history and development of US land policy in this paper, with a focus on the Homestead Acts of 1862 and 1866 and related political, economic, and social issues.

Patterns of racial inequality persist in the United States, but the influence of federal land policies like the Homestead Acts on present-day inequities has not been fully explored.

This is important because it is not clear whether land ownership through these acts would have facilitated intergenerational economic stability and prosperity for African Americans (Boerma & Karabarbounis, 2023; Hernandez-Truyol & Day, 2001; Nekoei & Seim, 2023; Turner, 2016).

As noted in this paper, homesteading was risky and cost prohibitive for many, African American or otherwise, and did not guarantee economic success (Limerick, 1987; Powell, 1878; Worster, 2004).

Still, much of the previous research focuses on the white experience.

The limited success of the average homesteader may not be completely representative when considering the unique barriers faced by African Americans during this period.

For instance, but for its problematic implementation, lack of legal protections, racial opposition, and swift repeal in 1876, the Homestead Act of 1866 (i.e., Southern Homestead Act) might have been more successful in settling recently emancipated slaves and providing them a long-term economic foundation (Edwards, 2019).

Furthermore, throughout the homesteading era, African Americans were consistently among the most marginalized groups and thereby among those who might have benefited from the economic security of land ownership.

The goal of this paper is to provide a historical summary and context for future research. Few studies have examined the influence of homesteading and other federal land policies on racial inequities, and this scarce literature appears to be outside of the agricultural and applied economics profession (Horst & Marion, 2019; Mitchell, 2001; Zabawa & Warren, 1998).

As studies of more recent policies and racial issues have become more prominent in the profession (e.g., Giri et al., 2024; Mishra et al., 2024), it is important that we also consider the role of historical policies in shaping the racial landscape of American agriculture.

The conditions that gave rise to agricultural economics as a separate field of study resulted in a unique and practical approach to addressing economic problems (Soth, 1976). This uniqueness makes the agricultural and applied economics profession particularly suited for studying how policies like the Homestead Acts influenced American agriculture and the ensuing welfare of African Americans. This area of research also offers opportunities for multidisciplinary collaborations (history, political science, etc.), expanding the breadth and depth of agricultural economics research.

BACKGROUND

In 1862, President Lincoln signed into law the first Homestead Act, the Pacific Railroad Act (establishing the transcontinental railroad), and the Morrill Act (establishing land grant universities) (Billings, 2012). These acts reflected the desire to populate and establish property rights in the west, but also supported the idea that the government was on the side of common Americans by expanding higher education and supporting wealth creation through land ownership for ordinary citizens (Allen, 2019; Olsen, 2016).

It has also been argued, however, that these acts were part of an effort to expand the role of government in social and economic planning, particularly since they were also passed when the Republican Congress enacted the Morrill tariff, which sharply raised import duties to support manufacturing in the Northeast (Billings, 2012; Cohen & Bradford DeLong, 2016; Irwin, 1998a, 1998b). Regardless of motivation, the Homestead Acts were important transformative policies in US history.

The Homestead Act of 1862 offered public land to citizens for homesteading (160 acres per household). For a minimal filing and commission fee of $12 ($308 in 2020 dollars), individuals who never raised arms against the federal government were deeded free land if they remained on the land for 5 years, built a house, and dedicated the land to crop cultivation (Billings, 2012; Shanks, 2005).¹

This act was important to land allocation in the United States (Limerick, 1987; Webb, 1959). As Shanks (2005) highlights, over a 76-year period there were three million homestead applicants and 1.5 million titles given (around a 50% success rate) under the 1862 Act, resulting in a total of 246 million acres of public land being transferred to US citizens (Figure 1). Assuming average fertility rates, Shanks (2005) estimates that a quarter of the current adult population potentially has a homesteader in their ancestry.

FIGURE 1

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Patents and acreage granted under the 1862 Homestead Act by decade. *1860 is 1863–1869.

Source: Figure created using data from Shanks (2005).

Access to homesteading was never equal along racial dimensions. At its inception, the Homestead Act did not include African Americans because it referred to citizens (Hernandez-Truyol & Day, 2001; Lanza, 1990).²

To partly deal with this issue, Congress passed the Southern Homestead Act of 1866, which explicitly stated that applicants could not be discriminated against based on color (Lanza, 1990).

The Southern Homestead Act was particularly controversial but operated much like the Homestead Act of 1862. Unlike the Homestead Act of 1862, however, the Southern Homestead Act more explicitly focused on land ownership for freed slaves and was limited to the 46 million acres of public land in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida (Canaday et al., 2015; Edwards, 2019; Lanza, 1990).

Homesteading in these southern states was already legal under the 1862 Act, but the Southern Homestead Act added special conditions (e.g., lower processing fees, restrictions on direct purchases) to encourage homesteading by former slaves and poor Whites (Edwards, 2019).³ While the Homestead Act of 1862 lasted well into the 20th century (Billings, 2012; Shanks, 2005), the Southern Homestead Act was repealed in 1876 with the end of the Reconstruction era, part of an overall waning of federal efforts to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy (Canaday et al., 2015).

Homestead policy was representative of a broader debate on the rights of citizenship, distribution of public lands to private citizens, and the government’s role in affording opportunities for wealth creation (Shanks, 2005).

In fact, land ownership has been considered a major factor in the economic success of the country in the years that followed its founding (Lanza, 1990).

However, this right was not afforded to African Americans, especially prior to the Civil War (Mitchell, 2001). As noted by Patterson (2018), an important aspect of being a slave is being the object of property and not the subject of property.

This was not simply a matter of law but reflected a broader societal attitude that individual rights and liberties did not apply to people of African descent (Copeland, 2013; Patterson, 2018).

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FEDERAL LAND POLICY

Federal oversight of public land and its allocation were established after the Revolutionary War (Gates, 1962; Rohrbough, 1968). The Land Ordinance of 1785, which created a framework for surveying and selling land within the Northwest Territory (encompassing the present-day Great Lakes region), was an early landmark legislation on the distribution of land held in the public domain (Geib, 1985). This ordinance aimed to generate revenue, foster westward expansion, and enable settlers to attain land ownership. Concurrently, the notion of public domain lands emerged. Public domain land was federally owned land available for public utilization, including settlement and agricultural pursuits (Carlos et al., 2022).

The traditional historical perspective is that the expansion of the US public domain resulted from purchases and acquisitions (Carter et al., 2006).⁴ However, a more nuanced view is that these instances simply secured exclusive rights to negotiate with sovereign Indigenous nations within the designated boundaries (Carlos et al., 2022).⁵ Once a given parcel of land was acquired by the United States, the land would be surveyed and then could enter the public domain for sale or transfer. At the same time, because of the slow pace and expenses associated with land acquisition from the public domain and population pressure, squatting—residing on unclaimed land—became increasingly popular and sanctioned by the federal government on the frontier (Limerick, 1987). Despite its illegality in the early 19th century, squatting garnered legitimacy through court rulings and preemption legislation enabled squatters to acquire legal ownership of the land they inhabited (Carlos et al., 2022).⁶ In many ways, the Homestead Act was representative of the acceptance and encouragement of squatting as public domain land became allocated through the rule of preemption (Carlos et al., 2022).

Throughout the 19th century, escalating tensions between northern and southern states often converged on issues of territorial expansion, settlement, and the frontier (Earle & Burke, 2013; Etcheson, 2004). Although slavery was a definitive issue, divisions between northern and southern states were deeply entrenched along numerous economic and political dimensions. Northern states were hubs of urban development, manufacturing, commerce, and smaller-scale agricultural production, whereas southern states were predominantly agrarian and politically dominated by large plantations dependent on enslaved labor (Webb, 1959).

From the beginning, the issue of slavery was tied up with the US expansion and provision of public land (Hughes, 1987; North & Rutten, 1987). The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery within the Northwest Territory and set the stage for subsequent policies addressing territorial expansion and slavery, including the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (establishing the Mason–Dixon Line) and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 (Forbes, 2009; Wunder & Ross, 2008). These measures aimed to balance the political and economic influences of northern and southern states. However, the landmark Dred Scott decision in 1857 curtailed Congress’s authority to regulate the expansion of slavery into new territories, effectively undermining prior compromises (Benton, 1857).

By the 1850s, the notions of preemption and homesteading had gained considerable traction, prompting the US Congress to introduce several homesteading bills. Homesteading and curbing slavery emerged as focal points for the newly formed Republican Party, primarily composed of northern politicians (Edwards, 2019; Foner, 1970; Lanza, 1990). The South was more divided on the matter. Plantation owners, wielding significant influence in politics, resisted land distribution to yeomen farmers due to apprehensions that the influx of small-scale farmers in the west would jeopardize the pro-slavery balance (Merritt, 2017).⁷ Still, many white southerners believed that affordable federal lands could elevate their social standing.⁸ Thus, it was a diverse political coalition that championed federal support for homesteading before the Civil War. Nonetheless, there was a firm commitment to exclude African Americans from the program. At the time, northern Republicans might have been against slavery, but they were hardly pro-Black and had little interest in sharing western lands with people of African descent (Dean, 2015).

Advocates for a federal homesteading bill saw little success during the 1850s. President James Buchanan’s veto of a Republican-written Homestead Act in June 1860 reflected the ongoing stalemate between the two political parties. However, this stalemate was resolved when southern states seceded from the Union, giving the Republican Party control over national policymaking. Consequently, Republicans enacted multiple bills in the initial years of the Civil War: the establishment of the US Department of Agriculture, the creation of the land-grant college system, charting a transcontinental railroad, and the Homestead Act (Dean, 2015).

As previously noted, African Americans were excluded from the Homestead Act due to the requirement of citizenship. Yet, there was no explicit exclusion of African Americans, which was likely an intentional omission due to changing political sentiments held by Republicans (Edwards, 2019). The course of the war engendered a transformative shift in Republican viewpoints regarding race and rights. The enlistment of Black men into military service marked a significant turning point, sparking a concerted effort, which W. E. B. Du Bois termed a “general strike” against both the Confederacy and slavery. With the advent of emancipation, Republicans championed full citizenship, voting rights, and economic empowerment through land ownership for African Americans (Du Bois, 1935). Party members advocated for land ownership opportunities commensurate with White citizens under the 1862 Homestead Act. The adoption of such ideas was exemplified by General William Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 during the Civil War, which earmarked 400,000 acres of rebel-owned plantations in the coastal South for resettling freed slaves. News of such experiments spread, and by the end of the war in 1865, rumors circulated that the federal government intended to provide “forty acres and a mule” to freed slaves (Foner, 1988).

The more radical faction of the Republican Party, led by individuals like Pennsylvania’s Thaddeus Stevens, sought substantial land redistribution for emancipated slaves (Foner, 1988). However, this vision faced political resistance. Following President Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat, assumed the presidency and had little interest in broadening Black political or economic influence (Stampp, 1967). Under President Johnson, land reform experiments like General Sherman’s were rolled back, as were proposals to make the Freedmen’s Bureau a vehicle for carving up and redistributing former Confederate plantations. To Johnson and more moderate Republicans, land reform threatened to violate the sanctity of private property and the fundamentals of American capitalism—a threat they saw as particularly pronounced if the beneficiaries were Black (Foner, 1988).

Despite these setbacks, the more radical wing of the Republican Party aimed for a compromise that would still extend land opportunities to freed slaves. First, they rectified the exclusion of African Americans by securing citizenship rights with the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment. However, recognizing the geographical divide between the predominantly southern Black population and western lands, Indiana Republican Congressman George W. Julian championed the Southern Homestead Act in 1866 (Riddleberger, 1955). This legislation eased concerns about private property rights by allocating 46 million acres of public land in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi through the same homesteading framework established in 1862 (Edwards, 2019). Former slaves were given priority in settling these lands.

Republicans envisioned that the public lands under the Southern Homestead would accommodate the nearly 4 million freed slaves through 80-acre plots for each family (Edwards, 2019). Unfortunately, the Southern Homestead Act found limited realization on the ground (Edwards, 2019). Prior attempts to subdivide Confederate plantations, such as General Sherman’s Field Order, stirred controversy due to their infringement upon private property and because they redistributed prime, fertile, and productive farmland to freed slaves. The 46 million acres reserved by the Southern Homestead Act were largely situated in forested or swampy terrains, characterized by poor soils ill-suited for row-crop agriculture (Gates, 1996; Shanks, 2005). Further complicating the situation, the bill’s text did not exclusively allot these lands to freed slaves (Shanks, 2005). Initially, eligibility was restricted to Unionist southern Whites and former slaves. Yet, many African Americans remained bound by annual wage-labor contracts negotiated by the Freedmen’s Bureau, consequently making them ineligible (Edwards, 2019). Subsequently, the eligibility scope expanded to include former Confederates in 1867, further affecting Black participation (Edwards, 2019).

The Southern Homestead Act remained for only a decade and probably exerted little impact on African Americans—the group it aimed to assist (Shanks, 2005). Its shortcomings shaped African American history, setting the stage for sharecropping, tenant farming, and the Great Migration (Edwards, 2019). Sharecropping, specifically, perpetuated a system wherein many African Americans remained reliant and landless, with limited prospects for improving their social and economic status (Hunte, 1992). In contrast, the 1862 Homestead Act remained in force until 1976, albeit becoming largely dormant by the 1930s.

HOMESTEADING AND THE UNCERTAINTIES OF AGRICULTURE ON THE GREAT PLAINS

Beyond the political and social barriers to homesteading, African Americans faced investment, equipment, and housing cost barriers. Homesteading was largely inaccessible for African Americans given these upfront costs. Additionally, there were short- and long-term challenges faced by homesteaders (predominantly Whites) given the agricultural boom-bust cycles from 1870 to 1940. Consequently, the lasting implications of the Homestead Acts, including whether homesteading was an effective means of building wealth in US history for the average Americans, are by no means evident.

The Homestead Acts remain among the most transformative policies in US history in terms of migration, settlement, and agricultural expansion (Cunfer, 2005; Webb, 1959). Still, the land allocated under these acts did not guarantee economic stability or upward mobility for homesteaders (Limerick, 1987; Worster, 2004). Ultimately, most land allocated under the 1862 Act was on the Great Plains, which was not well suited for the European-American agricultural system due to the aridity of the Plains. That is, 160 acres was often insufficient to establish successful long-term farming enterprises that met expectations of economic prosperity and growth for individuals and families (Powell, 1878; Worster, 2004). This meant, while the land was free, homesteading was an expensive and risky investment.

First, homesteaders had to pay the cost of migration. Then, homesteaders needed a house, plow, water well, fences, seeds, and draft animals to have a chance at successful harvests (McFerrin et al., 2012; Shanks, 2005). These initial expenses were as much as $1000 (approximately $17,500 in 2020 dollars) (Limerick, 1987) and, looking forward, annual costs versus revenues remained precarious (Webb, 1959).⁹ Although African Americans became legally eligible to homestead in terms of federal legislation, in practice, homesteading was often inaccessible to African Americans given the upfront costs (Shanks, 2005). While there is no detailed national data on homesteads by race to validate this statement empirically, it is notable that today the most homesteaded states are among the states with the lowest percent of African Americans. As of the 2020 census, the nine most homesteaded states (Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Kansas) were 6% African American, despite being 14% of the overall US population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020).

For homesteaders, the uncertainty and challenges of homesteading mostly did not recede after initial success or a few successful harvests. Instead, difficulties maintaining and living off a homestead often unfolded over years and decades. Climate and environmental conditions played a key role in the overall and long-term success of homesteads and were important to the geopolitical landscape in 1862. The Great Plains were the agricultural frontier that the Homestead Act eventually transformed. The states with the highest percent of their land claimed by homesteaders were all Great Plains states (Edwards et al., 2017). Because of aridity and volatile climate, these states were not the most favorable to agricultural production (Hansen & Libecap, 2004; Webb, 1959).¹⁰

The natural challenges facing homesteaders were understood by the mid-19th century as it was not a coincidence that US settlement reached the plains after the east and west coasts were settled (Webb, 1959).¹¹ Yet, by the late-19th and early-20th century environmental realities were downplayed in favor of more optimistic notions on the habitability of the plains for US settlers, including the idea that plowing endogenously created additional precipitation and the Dryfarming Doctrine, which argued that moisture could be saved in the soil, allowing small farms to endure any dry period (Libecap & Hansen, 2002). After centuries of relative obscurity for settlers of European heritage, including the bourgeoning United States, the Great Plains were increasingly settled by homesteaders, plowed, and integrated into the global market economy by the 1870s. Settlement and agricultural expansion continued, with some exceptions, until roughly the 1920s.

Proving up (meeting the requirements to receive ownership of the land) was a difficult task, with only 50% of homesteaders receiving ownership (Shanks, 2005). Typical failure and abandonment rates were punctuated by periods of widespread farm failures. A drought in the 1890s led to the first large homestead bust in which crop and farm failures induced an exodus of homesteaders (Libecap & Hansen, 2002). This episode foreshadowed the 1920s and 1930s and highlighted views such as those of John Wesley Powell (then Director of U.S. Geological Survey) that 160 acres was insufficient for an American family west of the 100th meridian (Powell, 1878; Worster, 2004).

Despite underlying climatic challenges for homesteaders and high failure rates, from 1870s to 1910s the Great Plains underwent rapid land-use change (Cunfer, 2005). Several factors contributed to the speed and completeness of the transition from grassland to agriculture in the Great Plains: the amount of land allocated and subsequently plowed under the Homestead Act, periods of relatively high precipitation and little drought, the mechanization of farm equipment, the ease at which the treeless plains could be plowed, the suitability of the plains for wheat (in non-drought years), and, eventually, surging global wheat demand during World War I (Alston, 1983; Hurt, 1981; Olmstead & Rhode, 2002; Webb, 1959). These factors led to the conversion of one of the world’s largest grasslands into a region dominated by wheat agriculture within a few decades (Cunfer, 2005; Worster, 2004).

The economic integration of the Great Plains, promoted by the Homestead Act, started to unfurl as Russian wheat reentered the global market after the end of World War I, driving wheat prices down 64% between June 1920 and December 1921 (Genung, 1940). Collapsing prices made farm debt hard to pay for many and led to extensive foreclosures (Alston, 1983). Despite these difficulties, wheat yields remained high, and the non-farm economy grew rapidly through the 1920s. These factors changed in 1929 when investment, consumption, production, and the stock market began a steep downward trend culminating with the Great Depression (Bernanke, 2000; Eichengreen, 1992; Romer, 1993).

At the same time, a drought that would persist through 1939 swept across the United States (Sichko, 2021). Non-coincidentally, the drought centered on the semi-arid and drought-prone Great Plains, then populated by millions of homesteaders. The drought had devastating consequences including towering dust storms fueled by “the Great Plow Up” and widespread, repeated, crop failures throughout the region. Many farmers abandoned their property during the 1930s in a mass environmental migration (Hornbeck, 2020; Long & Siu, 2018; Sichko, 2021). Nonetheless, most people stayed and more sustainable agricultural practices (subsidized and orchestrated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including the Soil Conservation Service) took hold starting in the mid-1930s (Cunfer, 2005).

The challenges of establishing a lasting homestead at the turn of the 20th century complicated straightforward interpretations of the 1862 Homestead Act as a wealth building vehicle in US history. Given current data and literature, it is not clear that land allocated under the Homestead Act improved the circumstance of the average homesteader. This lack of clarity is representative of a broader opaqueness concerning the implications of homesteading for primarily White settlers. It is conceivable, however, that African Americans would have had higher economic gains compared to Whites because their baseline wealth was much lower, and they had fewer outside options. This view is supported by higher success rates among Black homesteaders as discussed in the next section.

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE HOMESTEAD ACTS

The obstacles that African Americans faced when the Homestead Acts were passed, and in ensuing years, raise questions about the implications of homesteading policies on racial inequality. Shanks (2005, p. 25) presents this issue succinctly: did this one-time transfer of property provide a mechanism for economic gains over generations, or were benefits limited to one person or lifetime? While research by Bleakley and Ferrie (2016) suggests that one-time land transfers have an insignificant impact on future generations, this does not necessarily negate the consequences of the unique barriers faced by African Americans regarding homesteading.

To be certain, homesteading did not necessarily translate into relatively higher intergenerational wealth for the average homesteader. In fact, individuals with the ability to buy land outright were significantly better off than homesteaders, both in terms of money saved and land-use opportunities (Billings, 2012; Deverell, 1988). It is also important to note that more land was sold via private sales during the 30 years after the passage of the Homestead Act than was homesteaded, and that the Act resulted in huge gains for large-scale farms and ranches and individuals with the means to amass large timber holdings (Gates, 1962; LeDuc, 1962). Furthermore, as cities began to develop and economic opportunities in urban centers increased, the opportunity cost of being a farmer increased, resulting in significant declines in small family farms (Collins & Margo, 2011). This appears to also be the case for some African Americans. Canaday et al. (2015) show that illiterate Blacks were more likely to complete the homesteading requirements than literate Blacks. That is, individuals who knew how to read and write were more apt to relinquish their farms before completing the homesteading requirements for other opportunities.

At the same time, African American decision-making, and migration was often influenced by extreme racism, discrimination, and violence (Tolnay & Beck, 1992). The migration of African Americans to the Great Plains was, in part, motivated by deadly violence in the South (Wolters, 2015). However, many African Americans were so destitute that they had no resources to establish farms (Edwards, 2019). For those who could establish farms, they faced similar difficulties as other homesteaders. For instance, George Washington Carver forfeited his 160 acres in Beeler, Kansas because of the difficulties highlighted earlier (Mackintosh, 1976). In fact, there are examples where groups of African Americans were recruited from the South to homestead in the Great Plains, but often returned to the South when realizing the bleak prospects for settlement (Edwards, 2019).¹²

Although there is limited data on the African American experience on the Plains (Edwards et al., 2019), there is more detailed data and information on participation by race in the Southern Homestead Act of 1866.¹³ Moreover, there is research on its impact on African American land ownership. Studies suggest that the advancement of African Americans was significantly hindered by the Southern Homestead Act failure to provide landownership opportunities for recently emancipated slaves (Canaday et al., 2015; DeCanio, 1979; Edwards, 2019; Lanza, 1990). While there were nearly four million freed slaves at the time of the Southern Homestead Act, there were less than 6000 successful homestead claims by African Americans by 1876 (Edwards, 2019).¹⁴ Reasons why the Southern Homestead Act failed, range from the extreme poverty of freed slaves resulting in an inability to develop public lands and establish farms, to the unremitting racism, hostility, and violence by Whites, directly targeted at African Americans seeking land ownership (Edwards, 2019). Additionally, timber resources on public lands served as both a deterrent (increasing the investment needed to establish farmland) and competition (lumber companies seeking profits) (Canaday et al., 2015; Edwards, 2019; Gates, 1940; Lanza, 1990).

The public lands reserved for the Southern Homestead Act were mostly swampy, poorly drained, and unsuitable for settlement without large expenditures, all of which were major deterrents to homesteading (Gates, 1940; Oubre, 1976). The forest that covered these lands, considered worthless at the time, was seen as an obstacle to settlement and development. Consequently, public land in the South was priced at $1.25 per acre prior to the Act, some of which fell to less than $0.13 per acre due to the length of time it had been on the market (Gates, 1940). Oubre (1976) notes that the cost of the trip to the state land office to file a homestead affidavit was more expensive than the actual land in some instances, and the option to purchase was no longer available under the Southern Homestead Act. Clearly, the quality of some public lands in the South often made homesteading non-economical. In the end, significantly more Whites gained land under the Southern Homestead Act than African Americans since most lacked the needed capital and credit to turn forest into productive farmland (Canaday et al., 2015; Lanza, 1990).

Even when successful, many African American homesteaders later lost their land, due to either environmental or economic challenges, or the entrenched violent resistance of White neighbors who believed Black landholding to be a threat to their “superior” status. It is therefore no surprise that Eric Foner, the foremost chronicler of the Reconstruction era, deemed the 1866 Act “a dismal failure,” because only a few thousand African Americans ultimately benefited from the program (Foner, 1988). Political support for Reconstruction policies waned as northern timber companies eyed southern public lands for clear-cutting. Congress repealed the Southern Homestead Act in 1876, removing all restrictions on the remaining acres, and sold to the highest bidder—mostly to external corporations (Edwards, 2019). Hernandez-Truyol and Day (2001) note that racial hostilities that included discriminatory practices such as illegal fees, specious court challenges and rulings, and unscrupulous behavior by land speculators impeded the ability of African Americans to obtain and maintain ownership under the Southern Homestead Act. As history would play out, Whites overwhelmingly reaped the benefits with African Americans constituting fewer than a quarter of the land applicants (Hernandez-Truyol & Day, 2001).

Unlike many Whites who homesteaded, African Americans had a deep knowledge of farming and agriculture and had a cultural tradition of cooperation that could have allowed for communal sharing of resources for land development (Breland, 2021; Oubre, 1976). Lanza (1990) and Canaday et al. (2015) note that while African Americans were underrepresented in the population of homesteaders in the southern region, they were relatively more successful in satisfying homestead claims than Whites, succeeding at homesteading 35% of the time while Whites succeeded at 25%.

An important issue moving forward is whether African Americans would be better off overall if the Southern Homestead Act was more effective in establishing land ownership for freed slaves (Collins et al., 2022). A homesteading program free of the dilemmas of race and racism could have benefited African Americans. However, the overall climate allowed resentful White southerners and northern businesses to intimidate and exploit Black homesteaders. For instance, when Whites threatened or even displaced African Americans, most were too poor to legally protect their claims. In public-private land disputes, Whites often chose to support railroad companies rather than the cause of African American land ownership (Oubre, 1976). In the end, the decreased desire to fully integrate freed slaves in the American economy after Reconstruction coupled with southern White opposition precluded any significant success in homesteading by African Americans in the South.

Though few, studies indicate that an efficient and unhindered land ownership program for newly freed slaves would have at least narrowed racial wealth disparities (Collins et al., 2022). DeCanio (1979) shows that the redistribution of “40 acres and a mule” to freed slaves would have substantially improved the relative position of African Americans but would have only allowed Black wealth to eventually achieve half of White wealth, which is an improvement when compared to current wealth disparities. Miller (2020) studied the impact of land grants to African Americans in the Cherokee Nation after emancipation and found reductions in the racial wealth gap relative to the rest of the South, and that the allotted land and associated increase in income facilitated investment in both physical and human capital.

CONCLUSION

The 1862 and 1866 Homestead Acts were born from the rapidly shifting political landscape of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Such policies have deep roots in American history, and the Homestead Acts are evidence of an era when “affirmative action was white,” in the words of Ira Katznelson (2005). The American economy was founded on the principle of private property, with land ownership being associated with power, wealth, and independence (Ratcliffe, 2013). Homesteading afforded this opportunity to common Americans. To be certain, some African Americans took advantage of homesteading, albeit to a lesser degree than Whites, particularly after the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 was repealed (Edwards, 2019). However, given the racial climate in the 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans faced unique barriers and were not able to fully take advantage of homesteading due to both systemic barriers and racial hostilities (Baradaran, 2019). Barriers to African American land ownership during the homesteading period were likely compounded by the difficulties experienced by all homesteaders.

In this paper, we provide a historical summary and perspective on the Homestead Acts: how these Acts interacted with the socioeconomics of African Americans before and after emancipation and highlight important questions and knowledge gaps related to historical and present-day inequities. The unique mistreatment and violent conditions that African Americans faced during the homesteading period, as well as difficulties specific to their participation in homesteading raises questions about the implications of these difficulties on both past and present disparities. It is important to note that homesteading was not just about land ownership, but also involved participation in agricultural markets.

The historical exclusion of African Americans from fully participating in markets should also be considered in this context (Boerma & Karabarbounis, 2023).

More research is needed to establish if there are connections between these related difficulties and contemporary measures of racial inequality. Unfortunately, few studies have examined the effects of post–Civil War land policies on inequality overtime, which is an area particularly suited for the agricultural and applied economics profession given the agrarian nature of these policies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the editor, Mindy Mallory, and three anonymous reviewers. Their suggestions and comments greatly improved the quality of the paper. This research was supported [in part] by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy.

Endnotes

• ¹ Eligible applicants were the household head at least 21 years of age, and included new immigrants, single women, and even former slaves. The restriction against Confederate soldiers was soon lifted after the Civil War. The 2020 value is based on the CPI Inflation Calculator: https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation.
• ² In the Dred Scott versus Sandford case of 1857, the US Supreme Court ruled that persons of African ancestry could not claim citizenship.
• ³ The Homestead Act of 1862 included what was known as the “commutation clause.” That is, homesteaders could simply pay the government $1.25 per acre after 6 months for full title to the land. With the passage of the Southern Homestead Act, the commutation clause no longer applied, in effect banning land purchases within the 5-year period (Billings, 2012).
• ⁴ Examples of purchases include the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Alaska Purchase of 1867. Examples of acquisitions include the Florida Acquisition of 1819 and the Mexican Acquisition of 1848.
• ⁵ The period from 1790 to 1871 (Congress’s decision to cease treaty negotiations with Indigenous nations) witnessed a gradual and non-monotonic shift of power from Indigenous nations to the United States.
• ⁶ Squatting often led to direct confrontation and conflict with Indigenous people who also occupied the land. The rise of preemption laws parallels the disintegration of Indigenous sovereignty recognition and rights.
• ⁷ Their resistance was also driven by the proposed tariffs coupled with these policies, which were expected to ultimately have a negative impact on cotton exports (Irwin, 1998a, 1998b).
• ⁸ Among the dedicated national proponent of a federal bill to parcel out homesteads during the 1850s was Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, whose humble background and opposition to the planter class led him to push for a western homestead bill to benefit common Whites (Merritt, 2017).
• ⁹ Price adjustment calculations were made for 1867 dollars to 2020 dollars using a CPI Inflation Calculator.
• ¹⁰ The most popular homesteading states were all at least partially west of the 100th meridian, which corresponds with an average precipitation of less than 20 inches per year (the amount cited historically as required for productive agriculture) (Edwards et al., 2017; Libecap & Hansen, 2002; Webb, 1959).
• ¹¹ As Webb (1959) notes, by the 1840s migration to Oregon was relatively well developed but there was a “frontier jumping” of nearly 2000 miles (over the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains) that was unique to both the United States and most likely world history.
• ¹² Edwards et al. (2019) highlights, for instance, the Black homesteaders recruited from Scott and Fayette Counties in Kentucky by the founders of Nicodemus, Kansas. Nearly half of the first Nicodemus colony “quickly” returned to Kentucky once realizing the limited opportunities in the Solomon Valley.
• ¹³ Notably, Edwards et al. (2019) make a substantial contribution to our understanding of how many African Americans homesteaded on the Plains.
• ¹⁴ Lanza (1990) notes that there were less than 68,000 total applications during the 10-year period of the Southern Homestead Act (Blacks, Whites, successful, or otherwise).

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