3. Homesteaders

• History
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• GCSE

According to figure 11 what is
happening to the number
of immigrants from 1841 -1890?

1. Stays the same
2. increasing
3. decreasing
4. dividing

What is the name of the
railroad that crosses the
area of the northern
buffalo herd?

1. Major railroads
2. Union Pacific
3. Kansas Pacific
4. Central Pacific

What are prairie lands?

1. wooded land
2. mountainous land
3. enormous stretches of flat grassland
4. desert land

The Homesteaders move onto the plains.

After the Civil War the Eastern states were poor places to live. Both northerners and southerners left for the central and western areas of America. 

Spin the wheel and locate the state.

The Homestead Acts

To encourage people to settle on the land the government passed three acts:

1. The Homestead Act - a family could claim 160 acres of land free as long as they lived on it and farmed it for 5 years.
2. The Timber Culture Act - settlers could claim another 160 acres of free land as long as they planted 40 acres of trees on it.
3. The Desert Land Act: settlers could buy 640 acres very cheaply in areas where rainfall was scarce. 

How many acres did a settler recieve from the Homestead Act?

1. 40 acres
2. 160 acres
3. 640 acres
4. 1000 acres

The End of the Civil War

Thousands of demobilised soldiers and their families were looking to rebuild their lives. Thousands of newly freed black slaves were looking for new beginnings. The eastern states where they had grown up did not seem to be the best place to do this so they looked towards the west. They are known as exodusters and became cowboys, miners soldiers and railroad- builders in the west. 

The building of the transcontinental railroads

The US government wanted to build a railroad that linked the east coast to the west coast. In the 1860s two companies began building this. One built from the East coast towards the centre and the other the west coast to the centre. They eventually me at promontory point in Utah in 1869. This made it :

1. easy for homesteaders to get to the plains
2. cheap to buy the land near the railroad
3. easy to get machinery to the plains

What factor would have brought you to the plains?

The clothes that people wore were simple and good for farming, Many people had only one outfit. 

A house made of sod bricks. Bricks that are dug from the ground. 

An extended family of settlers. many people were needed to make a farm work so famillies would stick together. 

The land was used to farm wheat crops like Turkey Red

When the family first arrived there would have been tall grass on this land. They would have cleared the land, built the house and brought all tools, equpiment and furniture with them.  

What was the most significant reason that settlers went west and why?