The Homestead Act and The Southern Homestead Act

Thirteen-year old sharecropper boy near Americus, Georgia

[Photograph of two African American men on a mule-driven cotton wagon in or near Richmond County, Georgia, late 19th century]||Men on wagon with cotton

[Photograph of tenant farmers on the farm of Carol Hodges, Bulloch County, Georgia, 1949]

A thirteen-year-old sharecropper near Americus, Georgia.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection.
Two African American sharecroppers pull a cart of cotton near Augusta, GA circa 1872-1898.
Courtesy of Hargrett Library, Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection.
Tenant farmers on the tobacco farm of Carol Hodges in Bulloch County.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia collection.
The Savannah Tribune reports that after African American sharecroppers and tenant farmers took their peanut crops to the mill to be weighed they did not recieve payment reflective of the actual amount. The farmers were urged to report the discrepancies to the USDA and discouraged from following the trucks to the mills.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.

In 1862 President Lincoln signed The Homestead Act, which granted citizens and prospective citizens the opportunity to apply for free government land if they were willing to farm it. More than 1.6 million aspiring landowners applied to the program, and more than 270 million acres, or 10% of U.S. land, was parceled out and deeded to participants. While this opportunity afforded many Americans the opportunity to own land, few southern African Americans were able to participate. To address this issue, Congress passed the Southern Homestead Act of 1866, which allowed for the sale of land at low prices in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, but excluded Georgia. Across those select states, African Americans entered approximately 6,500 Homestead applications, with only about 1,000 resulting in deeds.

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