Sure, there's a lot to be said about how the Homestead Act was iffy…but it's still absolutely amazing that a legal document about land rights in the mid-19th century was so focused on granting those rights equally.
Especially considering the bulk of the focus was on fighting a bloody conflict.
But, the Homestead Act did indeed allow for men, women, freed slaves, and immigrants to partake of the joys of homesteading. Sure, restrictions like age and citizenship, not to mention a lack of traitorous activities, applied, but otherwise, this was one of the most egalitarian doctrines of its time.
Questions About Equality
- Do you think there was any advantage or disadvantage to a being female or Black homesteader?
- Being out in the wilderness, a homesteader needs to rely on their closest neighbors. Would prejudice from the cities cause problems with people of different genders and races who were all trying to eke a living in the West?
- How does a law meant for equality in owning federal land exclude a very specific group of people, like say, Native Americans already living there?
- Did all-Black towns, like Nicodemus in Kansas, which formed from neighboring homesteads, defeat the spirit of the law by becoming targets for racism?
Chew on This
Congress wouldn’t let women or freed Blacks vote…but they started down the right path by writing the Homestead Act broadly enough that they could at least own a homestead (with certain provisos).
Equality runs right through the Homestead Act, provided we’re only talking about potential citizens of the U.S. and not those of older nations who might just already be living on land out West.