Homestead Act, Second

Homestead Act, Second (21 June 1866)

Congress extended the first Homestead Act to public lands in Ala., Miss., Ark., La., and Fla. by offering to sell 80 acres for $5 to freedmen or others who could swear they had not been rebels. The act stimulated little settlement, because little good land remained in the southern public domain and ex-slaves lacked capital to develop farms; it was repealed in 1876.