Agrarianism and Reconstruction Politics: The Southern Homestead Act.

African Americans and federal land policy: Exploring the Homestead Acts of 1862 and 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).…”

“…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).…”

“…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).…”

“…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).…”

“…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).…”