This one's a gimme. If we’re talking any form of westward expansion in the mid to late 19th century, we’re talking Manifest Destiny. The land was only put there so the U.S. could conquer it, after all.*
(*Sarcasm.)
The adventurous spirit of the American was blatantly played upon in the propaganda around the Homestead Act. Be bold. Be adventurous. Go forth and seek your own fortune in the wilds of the West. There was a persistent idea that the true American could saunter into the wilderness and make a go of it all by their lonesome and that free land from the benevolent government was just the ticket.
Besides all the advantages of cleaning out the cities and slums by moving settlers out yonder, it was a God-given right in most Americans’ minds that the West would be settled. The Homestead Act was the perfect vessel to start that long-term process.
Hey, offer free land out West and over time, 10% of the government-held land gets settled through about four million claims. In other words, keep those wagons rollin’.
Questions About Manifest Destiny
- How was the country changed geographically and spiritually opening the frontier to settlers?
- If you’ve left home and civilization to head to the Wild West and make your fortune, is there a band of brothers type mentality with other settlers that folks back home just wouldn’t understand?
- How do settlers, motivated by a directive from God and enabled by the government and the Homestead Act, react when things go horribly wrong, like disease or injury?
Chew on This
If God intended the U.S. to spread across the continent, opening the West to homesteaders was a pretty good start.
The U.S. must only have been able to seize land from Mexico and Native Americans if it was intended by God to be settled by Americans.