The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 was a

United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

intended to offer land to prospective farmers, white and black, in the South following the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. It was repealed in 1876 after mostly benefiting white recipients.

Background

The law was enacted to break a cycle of debt during the

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

following the

. Prior to this act,

black Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

and

whites White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. De ...

alike were having trouble buying land.

Sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

and

tenant farming A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an Agrarian system, agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating Ca ...

had become ways of life. This act attempted to solve this by selling land at low prices so Southerners could buy it.

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. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a South ...

. 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 Army, Union General officer, general in the American Civil War, Civil War. As a brigade commander in the Army of the Potomac, Howard ...

, chief of the

Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...

, and with support from

Thaddeus Stevens Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, being one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Histo ...

and William Fessenden, 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 Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

, and

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

. 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 A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...

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. Many people also could not participate because the land prices themselves were still too high. 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. This paled in comparison to the 28,000 white Americans who entered claims.

References

Bibliography

* * Oubre, Claude F. ''Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership.'' Louisiana State University Press, 1978. {{DEFAULTSORT:Southern Homestead Act Of 1867 1866 in American law United States federal public land legislation June 1866 History of the Southern United States

Background

Legislative history

See also

References

Bibliography