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.

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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

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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.

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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 Homestead Act gave 160 acres to the adult head of a household provided they improved the land with farming and ranching and stayed there for five years.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 25, 2023

One policy, the Homestead Act, made millions of acres of government-held land available at very low cost.

From Salon • Aug. 14, 2022

They also passed a bill entitled the "Forty Acre Homestead Act."

From Old Mackinaw The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings by Strickland, W. P. (William Peter)