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

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

The uprooting of prairies across the Great Plains and the Dust Bowl could not have occurred without the massive settler movement triggered by the Homestead Act of 1862.

From Salon

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

They've been left out of the GI Bill, they were left out of the Homestead Act.

From Salon