Homesteaders and Exodusters

Homestead Act

• The Great Plains were also known as the Great American Desert because it was so flat, treeless, and dry.

• Pioneers were new settlers to the Great Plains.• In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act

to encourage people to start farms on the Great Plains.

• We needed more farms to feed our growing population.

• Many wanted to homestead because it provided a chance to have land, home, freedom, & prosperity.

How to qualify for Homesteading:

• Men over 21 (or women who were head of the family- single or widowed)

• Claim 160 acres of land for a small fee of $10.• Farm the land and live there for 5 years.• Before the Civil War, many traveled to their

land claims by covered wagon. After the Civil War, more and more people moved west by train.

Sodbusters and Exodusters

• Sodbusters were homesteaders who had to bust up sod (grass and soil) to build their homes (no trees for building).

• Exodusters were freed slaves who moved to the Plains to get the same things sodbusters wanted: land, home, freedom, and prosperity.

• Sodbusters were homesteaders who had to bust up sod (grass and soil) to build their homes (no trees for building).

• Exodusters were freed slaves who moved to the Plains to get the same things sodbusters wanted: land, home, freedom, and prosperity.

• http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/civil/jb_civil_homested_1.html

What made life difficult?

• Harsh weather and natural disasters- floods, droughts, tornadoes, hailstorms, blizzards

• Insects- grasshoppers could eat an entire crop in a day

• Sod houses- snakes and dirty conditions

Technology• New inventions and farming techniques made life

better for the homesteaders.• Steel plow- stronger, didn’t break like iron plows• Windmills- pumped water from underground

wells • Barbed wire- fences were cheap and easy to

build, kept cattle and wild animals from trampling crops

• Dry farming- dug long, narrow ditches to plant crops, reduces need for rain