Enacted by U.S. Congress, May 20, 1862

Reprinted from Our Documents (Web site)

An act to secure homesteads to settlers in the West

"Upon filing the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified…."

In 1862, the U.S. Congress offered to sell public lands to citizens and to immigrants at the cost of $1.25 per acre, or less. The law was designed to attract people to settle vast stretches of territory in the Midwest and West, and it was highly effective. The promise of land at a low price attracted hundreds of thousands of people from the East and from Europe. The offer greatly increased the numbers of people migrating westward.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, owning land was a dream of hundreds of...