homesteader

US settler who took up land on the Great Plains following the US government's Homestead Act (1862) during the era of westward expansion. Homesteaders were offered 65 ha/160 acres for a small registration fee, with full ownership after five years' occupation, enabling even poor Americans to gain land. Survival was hard in the semi-arid environment, although conditions improved with the opening of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 and two further acts making 390-ha/960-acre holdings available by 1877, improving their viability. The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 marked the final influx of homesteaders to the region.

Settlement of the Great Plains made the USA's declaration of its manifest destiny to expand westwards a reality, but ended the way of life of the original inhabitants, the Plains Indians. Moved off their lands onto Indian reservations, they also saw their livelihoods destroyed as the North American buffalo (bison), were hunted to near extinction on the Plains.

Westward expansion By the 1860s the only large area of the USA left unsettled by Americans moving west was the Great Plains. The settlers of the 1840s and 1850s had ignored this region, believing it to be an infertile desert, in part because it had been misleadingly labelled the Great American Desert on maps of the area since 1823. While fertile land remained available in Oregon and California, settlers considered the Plains an unattractive option. By the 1860s, however, all the land in California and Oregon had been taken up and incoming settlers required a new area to settle; the Great Plains offered this opportunity.

Government aid To ensure the settlement of the Great Plains, the US government passed a series of acts. The first was the Homestead Act (1862), offering settlers 65 ha/160 acres of land for a small registration fee. To keep the homesteaders on the Plains and prevent speculators from buying up the holdings and selling them at a higher price, full ownership of the land was not gained until it had been occupied for five years. It was recognized that life on the Plains was hard and that the new settlers would require all their money simply to survive, so the Homestead Act made it possible for even poor Americans to take up holdings and still afford some seed and machinery. The act increased the numbers able to move onto the Great Plains and accelerated their settlement. However, although the Homestead Act was passed in 1862, uptake was slow until the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865).

The second act passed was the Timber Culture Act in 1873. This increased the land available to homesteaders by another 65 ha/160 acres, with the requirement that they planted 16 ha/40 acres of trees on their new lands. The Timber Culture Act recognized the difficulty of supporting a family on the 65 ha/160 acres granted by the Homestead Act, and also attempted to tackle the problems caused by timber shortage on the Plains.

The third act was the Desert Land Act in 1877. This offered homesteaders a further 260 ha/640 acres of marginal desert land on which they could graze animals. The extra land released more of the homesteaders' previously held 130 ha/320 acres for growing crops. By 1877 it was possible for homesteaders to obtain 390 ha/960 acres of land for little money, enabling them to settle permanently on the Plains with enough land to survive.

Farming the Great Plains Survival was always hard on the Great Plains for, although not a desert as the name Great American Desert would suggest, they were not the best environment for living or farming. Temperatures fluctuated from extremes of heat in summer, with droughts and dust storms, to extreme cold in winter, with blizzards common. Rain and groundwater were scarce, making the cultivation of crops difficult. The solution was to use wind pumps to extract underground water from wells dug into the ground, but this was an expensive investment and many homesteaders were unable to afford the wind pumps until the 1880s.

At first the homesteaders had a difficult time just trying to farm their land at all. The soil and climate were quite different to the eastern USA, where most homesteaders came from, and their efforts to use the same machinery and crops as they had in the East proved disastrous. The matted roots of the virgin soil (soil never previously cultivated) broke the weak iron ploughs that had been able to cope easily with the softer conditions found in the eastern USA. In addition to this, their crop varieties were too tender to withstand the dry summers and extreme temperature fluctuations of the Great Plains. Fortunately, solutions were found to both problems. In 1837 John Deere, an Illinois blacksmith, invented the ‘Sodbuster’ steel plough for a neighbour. This had a much stronger metal blade to cut through the hard ground. In addition, in 1874 a group of Russian settlers brought Turkey Red Wheat, a hardy variety of winter wheat, to the Plains. Turkey Red Wheat was able to grow in harsh conditions and with less water than other varieties.

Another problem faced by homesteaders was that cattle would trample their crops. It was virtually impossible to build fences as the Plains lacked trees to supply wood. The solution came in 1874 when Joseph Glidden invented a machine to mass-produce barbed wire, a strong and affordable fencing to protect the homesteaders' crops.

Housing The shortage of timber meant that the homesteaders had to build their houses out of the hard soil cut into sods, giving them the name sod houses. Although cheap to construct they were unhygienic and impossible to keep clean, leading to the spread of disease. Wooden houses were the obvious solution and the Timber Culture Act sought to encourage tree plantations. However, such trees would take many decades to grow large enough to build houses and in the meantime the homesteaders had to remain in their sod houses or buy timber shipped into the local town when they could afford to do so.

Trancontinental Railroad The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 both accelerated the settlement of the Plains and helped the homesteaders both socially and economically. Their journey times to the East and far West were cut from weeks to days, connecting them to families and markets for their goods. Crops could be shipped to the cities for a profit. The towns that sprang up along the railroad also offered much needed social connections for the isolated homesteaders, linking the homesteaders to the rest of the USA and helping to bring increased civilization to the region.

Impact of homesteading on US history The settlement of the Great Plains by homesteaders made the USA's belief in its manifest destiny to expand westwards a reality. However, the need for land created by the homesteading movement required the removal of the Plains Indians. Those remaining were forced onto reservations of worthless land, usually following war with the US Army. As their lands were taken away and the buffalo were destroyed, the way of life of the Plains Indians came to an end.