Homestead Act of 1862
I was perusing the internet this morning while simultaneously watching a History Channel episode called The Black Blizzard which chronicles what life was like during the 1930s Dust Bowl. I decided to find out more about this tragedy.
Supposedly the book to read on the subject is called “The Worst Hard Time” by Tim Egan for those that are interested (disclaimer: I have not read the book), however the documentary was narrated by Egan and it would seem he has harvested some solid facts.
As the History Channel started to draw more of my attention, my Austrian wheels began turn: How did the Dust Bowl came about? How did the Midwest become over cultivated? Why did so many people move to Western Kansas to farm? In the The Worst Hard Time Egan writes:
“Why did families settle in the and western half of the Great Plains–land described as ‘the flattest, driest, most wind-raked, least-arable part of the United States?’ The government and the media of the day undoubtedly played major roles in “selling” the land to unsuspecting settlers. Congress encouraged settlement of “the last frontier in public domain” and, in 1909, passed the Homestead Act, a desperate move offering inexpensive land and attractive incentives for settlement. Newspaper editors, bankers, politicians, and speculators distributed fliers, broadsides, and brochures advertising ‘the most alluring body of unoccupied land’ in the country, and the government termed it ‘the last frontier of agriculture’ Brochures described areas with paved, tree-lined streets, clean water, and railroads but, when the settlers arrived, they found only stakes in buffalo grass.”
Hmmm, the Homestead Act, sounds like another populist undertaking, where did this legislation originate and what’s it all about?
The Homestead Act of 1862 was passed by the U.S. Congress. It provided for the transfer of 160 acres (65 hectares) of unoccupied public land to each homesteader on payment of a nominal fee after five years of residence; land could also be acquired after six months of residence at $1.25 an acre. The government had previously sold land to settlers in the West for revenue. As the West became politically stronger, however, settlers increased pressure on Congress to guarantee free land. Several bills providing for free distribution of land were defeated in Congress; in 1860 a bill was passed in Congress but was vetoed by President Buchanan. With the ascendancy of the Republican party (which had committed itself to homestead legislation) and with the secession of the South (which had opposed free distribution of land), the Homestead Act, sponsored by Galusha A. Grow, became law.
This is what I would call one of Hazlitt’s half truths. In the short term the Homestead Act seemed like a great undertaking: revenues for the government and land for the people to farm, but what were the long term affects of the government providing land to the people for essentially nothing? What were the “whole truths” of the government legislation? One might ask, “How could they have possibly known what the “whole truth” was going to be? But that’s just it, no man, no group, no human….no government can provide us with whole truths. No one person can have that kind of foresight and that’s why doing nothing may be better than doing something. But then again doing nothing is not what gets you elected.
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One question, one supplement to your post.
1) After the Dust Bowl, the government sponsored measures to get farmers to cultivate wheat and other soil exhaustive crops which led to smaller scale dust bowl incidents in the 1950s and 1960s. In all fairness, government conservation and irrigation measures did help limit the consequences of these latter events.
2) You seem to be applying a causal link between Homestead and the overuse of the land. I wonder if these two items, rather, are merely correlated (correlation vs. causation). I suppose that if a farmer gets something cheaply, he may be less inclined to protect that investment. He would then likely assume the further cheap land would be available, though, right? Also, what about the improvements made to the land (fencing, homes), wouldn’t those capital investments make him want to take an interest in his land? More likely, I think, is that farmers simply used the land to maximize profits, and likely had no understanding of the ecological devastation being wrought. Perhaps above Homestead may have been the WWI governmental push of wheat production and price control. Slogans like “Wheat will win the war!” were common.
1. That’s correct.
2. Farmers used the land to maximize profits, they used their 160 acres which were either given to them or purchased at $1.25 an acre. The government essentially gave a bunch of people land that may not have necessarily known the ramifications of their actions. People who may not have been aware that periodically, say every 50 years, massive droughts that lasted years, would hit the midwest. Now if this drought hits and I own 1000 acres I may more easily understand the principles of supply and demand as well as the principals of crop rotation. It is much more difficult to tell someone with 160 acres that they have to take half of land out of production than it is to tell a farm of 1000 acres. ONE purpose of the Homestead Act, was to make land affordable to the everyday citizen. Perhaps dividing land into small tracts had some unintended long term consequences.