Homestead Act

American  

noun

1. a special act of Congress (1862) that made public lands in the West available to settlers without payment, usually in lots of 160 acres, to be used as farms.

---

Homestead Act British  

noun

1. an act passed by the US Congress in 1862 making available to settlers 160-acre tracts of public land for cultivation

2. (in Canada) a similar act passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1872

---

Homestead Act Cultural  

1. A law passed in the 1860s that offered up to 160 acres of public land to any head of a family who paid a registration fee, lived on the land for five years, and cultivated it or built on it.

---

Example Sentences

The Homestead Act settled Americans in large numbers in the trans-Mississippi West.

From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 27, 2025

As a high school student in San José, Chavez-Garcia knew none of this history — “we learned more about the Homestead Act in the Midwest,” she joked.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 5, 2025

The group recommended formalizing which vehicles meet the criteria of the Homestead Act, saying they must have at least three of the following:

From Seattle Times • Jan. 23, 2023

"His vision of the Union meant opportunity for all — hence homestead acreage for the many," Lincoln historian Harold Holzer told Salon about the 1862 Homestead Act during an interview last year.

From Salon • Aug. 14, 2022

Well, you can work and buy land with your savings, and land here under the Homestead Act has been $1.25 an acre since 1820; still that may not put you ahead very fast.

From Children of the Market Place by Masters, Edgar Lee