USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Each homesteader had to live on the land, build a home, make improvements and farm to get the land. The patent they received represented the culmination of hard work and determination. Nearly four million homesteaders settled land across 30 states over 123 years.

Detailed explanation-2: -The original homestead act, passed in 1904, no longer offers free land in Nebraska.

Detailed explanation-3: -President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee.

Detailed explanation-4: -Homestead Act Certificate to Daniel Freeman In the 1830s the federal government had said this area was Indian country-a place where Native Americans could live as independent nations. But with passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the government went back on that promise and opened the land to settlement.