The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 is a United States federal law enacted to break a cycle of debt during the Reconstruction following the American Civil War. Prior to this act, blacks and whites alike were having trouble buying land. Sharecropping and tenant farming had become ways of life. This act attempted to solve this by selling land at low prices so Southerners could buy it. Many people, however, could still not participate because the low prices were still too high.

Legislative history

A "Second Freedmen's Bureau bill" was introduced December 5, 1865, but was vetoed and weakened before eventually overriding a second veto by president

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...

. Championed by General

Oliver O. Howard Oliver Otis Howard (November 8, 1830 – October 26, 1909) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the Civil War. As a brigade commander in the Army of the Potomac, Howard lost his right arm while leading his men against ...

, chief of the

Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...

, and with support from Thaddeus Stevens and

William Fessenden William Pitt Fessenden (October 16, 1806September 8, 1869) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. Fessenden was a Whig (later a Republican) and member of the Fessenden political family. He served in the United States Hou ...

, the Southern Homestead Act was proposed to Congress, and eventually passed, and signed into law by President

on June 21, 1866, going into effect immediately. The Southern Homestead Act opened up 46,398,544.87 acres (about 46 million acres or 190,000 km²) of public land for sale in the Southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The land was initially in parcels of (half-quarter section) until June 1868, and thereafter parcels of (quarter section, or one quarter of a square mile), and homesteaders were required to occupy and improve the land for five years before acquiring full ownership. Until January 1, 1867, the bill specified, only free Blacks and White Unionists would be allowed access to these lands. Accordingly, the primary beneficiaries for the first six months were freedmen who were in desperate need of land to till. However, the law encountered many obstacles, notably: Southern bureaucrats often did not comply with the law or with the orders of the Freedmen's Bureau, notably not informing blacks of their opportunity to acquire land; violence from competing whites; poor quality of the land; and poverty of the farmers who were often unable to effectively use the land without further money to invest. Ultimately, before too much land was distributed, the law was repealed in June 1876. Nevertheless, free Blacks entered about 6,500 claims to homesteads, and about 1,000 of these eventually resulted in property certificates.Oubre, ''Forty Acres and a Mule'' (1978), p. 188.

Legislative history

See also

References

Further reading