The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 is a United States federal law enacted to break a cycle of debt during the Reconstruction following the American Civil War. Prior to this act, blacks and whites alike were having trouble buying land. Sharecropping and tenant farming had become ways of life. This act attempted to solve this by selling land at low prices so Southerners could buy it. Many people, however, could still not participate because the low prices were still too high.[1]
- ^ Paul Wallace Gates, "Federal Land Policy in the South 1866-1888." Journal of Southern History (1940) 6#3 pp: 303-330. in JSTOR