Editing Homestead Acts (section)

=== Southern Homestead Act of 1866 ===
{{main|Southern Homestead Act of 1866}}
{{For|African Americans that settled in the West and the Midwest|Exodusters}}
The act was enacted to allow poor [[tenant farmer]]s and [[sharecropper]]s in the [[American Southeast|South]] to become landowners in the [[Southern United States]] during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]]. In the South, poor farmers and sharecroppers made up the majority of the population so the act sold land at a lower price to decrease poverty among the working class.<ref>Edwards, Richard. “African Americans and the Southern Homestead Act.” ''Great Plains Quarterly'' 39, no. 2 (2019): 103–30.</ref>

It was not very successful, as even the low prices and fees were often too much for the applicants to afford.<ref>Paul Wallace Gates, "Federal Land Policy in the South 1866-1888." ''Journal of Southern History'' (1940) 6#3 pp: 303-330. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2192139 in JSTOR]</ref> The land made available was also mostly undeveloped forestry, and only white people had the means to make them productive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Muhammad |first1=Andrew |last2=Sichko |first2=Christopher |last3=Olsson |first3=Tore C. |date=March 2024 |title=African Americans and federal land policy: Exploring the Homestead Acts of 1862 and 1866 |journal=Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy |language=en |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=95–110 |doi=10.1002/aepp.13401 |issn=2040-5790|doi-access=free }}</ref>