The great abundance of land in the area that eventually became the United States was the most important factor in determining national land policies. In 1790 the new nation contained 568,839,040 acres, but as a result of the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Mexican Cession (1848), and other acquisitions, including Alaska and Hawaii, the United States by 1970 extended over 2,271,343,000 acres of land and water. Of this vast area, 1,511,140,000 acres were privately owned, and 760,204,000 were held by the federal government.
The availability of so much unoccupied land required the British colonies, as well as individual proprietors who had received large grants from the king of England, to adopt liberal land policies to attract settlers. It took population to increase the value of land. Virginia and other colonies adopted the headright system, which gave a quantity of land to those who paid their own way to America or who completed an indenture. Proprietors such as William Penn also gave land to those who transported themselves and their families to Pennsylvania. Other settlers simply went to the frontier and occupied unsettled land. By the time of the Revolution there was a widespread belief among Americans that they should have easy access to land, meaning that it should be cheap or even free to honest settlers who wanted to establish family farms.
Under the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution, land not included within the boundaries of the original thirteen states became public domain, owned and administered by the national government. Congress provided for surveying and selling public lands in the Land Ordinance of 1785. This law established the rectangular system of survey, which divided land into townships six miles square, sections a mile square containing 640 acres, and quarter sections of 160 acres. The law also set the least amount of land one could buy from the government at 640 acres for a minimum price of $1.00 an acre. Land had to be offered at public auction before it could be sold directly to individuals, a provision that endured until 1841. The ordinance was more favorable to speculators than to ordinary farmers because the average settler did not have $640.00 for the minimum purchase. Speculators took advantage of the law, buying large quantities of land and reselling it in small plots to individual purchasers at higher prices.
During the 1790s, controversy arose over whether policies should be directed at using public lands mainly as a source of revenue or at helping actual settlers easily obtain land. Those who favored the principle of using land for revenue won out in the Land Act of 1796. This law raised the minimum price of government land to $2.00 an acre.
The policy of making it easier for settlers to acquire land, however, soon prevailed. In 1800
Congress passed the Harrison Land Law that reduced the amount that could be purchased directly from the federal government to 320 acres and permitted payment over four years. Even at $2.00 an acre, a settler could obtain 320 acres with a down payment of only $160.00. Four years later the minimum purchase was lowered even further to 160 acres. In 1820 Congress abolished the credit provision, but lowered the price to $1.25 an acre and cut the minimum purchase to 80 acres. Now a settler could buy a piece of public land for as little as $100.00. Congress was moving toward the democratic policy of widespread private ownership of land.
Many settlers moved ahead of government surveys and occupied parts of the public domain as squatters. When the land was surveyed and put up for sale, they would insist they had prior rights. Congress recognized this position when it passed the Pre-emption Act of 1841, which assured squatters they would have first chance to purchase 160 acres at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre. Since the quality of land varied, many western leaders proposed that poorer land be sold at reduced prices if it remained on the market for an extended time. In 1854 Congress passed the Graduation Act, which permitted land that had remained unsold for as long as thirty years to be bought for as little as 12 1/2 cents an acre.
Meanwhile, there was a growing demand, especially from westerners, for the federal government to give land to individuals who would settle on it and cultivate it. Supporters of free homesteads argued that land ownership would give people a strong economic stake in society and an interest in good government and political stability. Many Americans held the Jeffersonian view that farmers were more democratic, honest, hardworking, independent, virtuous, and patriotic than city residents. Thus to increase the number of family farmers would benefit and strengthen the nation. The homestead principle, however, had strong opponents. Eastern manufacturers feared that free land would draw away their workers, and southerners believed that western lands would be occupied by free farmers, which might ultimately reduce the power of the slave states.
Bills offering free land to actual settlers were considered regularly by Congress after 1840, and in 1848 the Free-Soil party made homesteads a national political issue. Four years later the first homestead bill passed the House of Representatives, but it failed in the Senate. Nevertheless, the idea continued to gain support. Congress passed a weakened homestead bill in 1860, but President James Buchanan vetoed it. It was not until May 10, 1862, after Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans came to power and the southern states had seceded, that Congress passed the Homestead Act. The law provided for granting 160 acres of land to qualified individuals who agreed to build a residence and live on the land for at least five years. The only cost was a small filing fee.
Other laws designed to place public lands into private ownership soon followed. In 1866 Congress passed the Southern Homestead Act to help black freedmen acquire land, but few entries were made and the law was repealed in 1876. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 granted 160 acres to qualified persons in certain western states if they planted one-fourth of the land with trees, a requirement later reduced to 10 acres. The Desert Land Act of 1877 offered 640 acres of land in parts of the West for $1.25 an acre with only 25 cents an acre down, providing the buyer promised to irrigate part of it. A year later the Timber and Stone Act permitted the purchase of 160 acres that were valuable only for timber and stone. The price was only $2.50 an acre, less than the value of one tree on some forest land disposed of in this manner.
As settlers pushed into the far western states, new problems emerged. Farmers needed irrigation water in many areas and larger acreages for dry-land farming and ranching. The Reclamation Act of 1902 provided that revenue from the sale of public lands in sixteen western states be placed in a national fund to be used for constructing dams and irrigation works. This law was designed to encourage the settlement of bona fide farmers on small farms throughout the arid West by making irrigation water available at reasonable prices. Although many problems emerged in this program, it helped establish thousands of small irrigated farms.
When settlers reached the semiarid Great Plains, it became clear that 160-acre homesteads were too small for successful farming or ranching in such an environment. In 1909 Congress passed the Enlarged Homestead Act, which authorized 320-acre homesteads in several western states. In 1916, 640-acre stock-raising homesteads were permitted in some parts of the West.
Except for the Homestead Act of 1862, none of these laws did much to help actual settlers. Large ranchers were the main beneficiaries of the Desert Land Act, and timber and mining companies profited most from the Timber and Stone Act. A great deal of graft and corruption surrounded disposal of the public domain in the late nineteenth century. The goal of assisting settlers was compromised by poorly drawn laws, inefficient administration of the land offices, and outright fraud. Nevertheless, in some western states the Homestead Act was a major factor in farm building; between 1868 and 1904 final homestead entries totaled 718,819.
Although helping farmers acquire land was a primary objective of national land policy, the federal government disposed of millions of acres for other purposes. During the nineteenth century, Congress granted land to the states for canal and road construction, for river improvements, and for public buildings. To encourage enlistments and reward soldiers for their wartime service, veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War received bounty warrants redeemable in land. The states were also awarded land to help fund schools and colleges. Many states received sections 16 and 36 in each township for the support of common schools. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 gave the states 30,000 acres of land for each of their congressmen and senators to endow agricultural and mechanical colleges. The largest grants went to railroads to encourage construction of the transcontinental lines. Altogether, between 1850 and 1871, when the railroad land grant policy ended, railroads received 175,350,000 acres from the public domain, although they later had to forfeit some 35 million acres for failure to meet construction agreements.
During the rapid occupation of the public lands in the nineteenth century, American Indians were pushed into ever smaller areas. Although the federal government recognized some Indian rights to the lands they occupied, there were strong efforts to acquire the lands by agreement, treaty, or force. Removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes" from the Southeast to Oklahoma in the 1830s illustrates that policy at its worst. During the late nineteenth century, Indians were forced onto reservations and their surplus lands opened to white settlement. In 1887 Congress passed the Dawes Act, which provided for individual allotments to Indians of most tribes.
Around 1890, national land policy, which had focused on getting public land into private hands quickly, easily, and cheaply, began to change, and by World War I it had become national policy to maintain permanent federal control over some lands. The shift was toward conservation. The Forest Reservation Act of 1891 permitted setting apart timberland from private entry. Even earlier Congress had begun to turn areas of unusual natural beauty into national parks--Yellowstone National Park had been established in 1872. President Theodore Roosevelt was an ardent conservationist, and by the end of his administration in 1909 forest reserves totaled some 194,505,000 acres. He also set aside land for parks, dam sites, and other public purposes, and the federal government reserved oil, coal, and grazing lands.
By the 1930s there was general acceptance that the national government would reserve and administer millions of acres in a permanent public domain. The Taylor Act of 1934 provided for improved administration and conservation of some 80 million acres of federally held grazing land. This law reflected a desire for more careful and efficient administration of the public domain in order to preserve valuable natural resources. Executive orders in November 1934 and February 1935 withdrew all public lands from private entry. These actions ended homesteading, although a few exceptions were subsequently approved. Most of the public lands were administered by agencies within the Departments of Interior and Agriculture.
Private individuals and companies were not denied use of resources on the public domain, but users had to operate under rules laid down by Congress and administrative agencies. By the middle of the twentieth century more ardent conservationists were demanding that some parts of the public domain be permanently set aside as wilderness areas. They argued that timber cutting, oil drilling, and other economic activities should be completely prohibited and urged preserving the designated areas in their pristine state. Responding to these demands, Congress passed the Wilderness Act of 1964, which set aside millions of acres as wilderness with very restrictive rules on their use. Many westerners bitterly criticized this law, insisting that more resource development should be permitted on federal lands. Conservationists, however, won the day. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 emphasized the principle of permanent ownership of the public domain and gave the secretary of interior greater powers to enforce restrictive policies on use of public lands. There were strong countervailing pressures in the 1980s to permit greater economic development in parts of the public domain, including Alaska. For the most part, however, these forces were unsuccessful in changing basic federal policy. In the last half of the twentieth century, administration of federal lands shifted from a custodial role to a much more positive and intensive administration of the more than 700 million acres of public lands. There was heavy emphasis on conservation with uses directed to recreation and wildlife preservation, as well as diminished economic development.
Public land policies achieved a number of goals during the nation's first two hundred years. The sale and leasing of land raised millions of dollars in revenue. Second, and much more important, was the fact that the land laws, especially the Homestead Act, encouraged private ownership of family farms. Federal land policies also promoted and supported internal improvements, education, and general economic development. In the second century of the nation's history, federal policy aimed at preserving a permanent public domain in the form of forests, grazing districts, parks, national monuments, and other lands for the general benefit of all Americans.
Bibliography:
Marion Clawson, The Federal Lands Revisited (1983); Paul W. Gates, History of Public Land Law Development (1968).
Author:
Gilbert C. Fite
See also Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy Conservation and Environmental Movements; Homestead Act; Indians; Internal Migration; Louisiana Purchase; Morrill Land Grant Act.
