Homestead Acts
The Homestead Act ( also home of German Law ) is a 1863 that came into force in the United States federal law to acquire land, which supplemented the national rules and created more legal certainty for the squatters.
It allowed each person over 21 years to settle on a previously uninhabited piece of land, a 160 acre ( about 64 ha) stake out great country and to manage. After a period of five years, the settlers then became the owner. This period could be reduced to six months by paying $ 1.25 per acre of land ( $ 200 total so ).
The law was signed by President Lincoln on May 20, 1862.
History
At the end of the 18th century were still about 2.3 million km ² (570 million acres) to colonize available, but which was only a very small part of agricultural use. When the colonization frontier westward had pushed up to the dry steppes of the Great Plains, was the amount of land that could claim a settler, to 2.6 km ² (640 acres).
1906 then the Forest Homestead Act was passed in 1912 and finally a last extension of the law decided that, reduced the period of management of the claimed land before it could become the property of the settler to three years.
Apart from a few isolated pieces of land that were not claimed until the 1950s, the land acquisition was completed on the basis of the homestead law until 1910, except in Alaska essentially. Through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, this practice of land grants public land has been set. The only exception was Alaska, where one could acquire until 1986 Country after the Homestead Act.
Homestead Memorial
In Beatrice, Nebraska, is the Homestead National Monument of America, a memorial commemorating the settlers after the homestead law. The memorial includes the farm of Daniel Freeman, the first settlers after the Homestead Act in Nebraska and possibly the United States.
Acquisition in Europe
From the origin in America, the homestead movement continued from the end of the 19th century in Europe, where, besides the idea of discount and secured land acquisition, other factors played a role:
- Creation of real property, which is largely beyond the reach of creditors,
- Promoting settlement thought and Kleinbauerntums, and
- Curb the rural exodus.
Similar regulations existed in Romania ( 1864), Serbia ( 1873), Austria (1888 ), France (1894 ), Switzerland (1907 ) in Belgium (1909 ) and Germany (1920). In Germany, the homeland movement received a major boost after the First World War, when the existence of the returning war veterans or the widows and orphans had to be secured. On the basis of Article 155 WRV the kingdom homestead law was adopted on 10 May 1920 whereby the countries remained scope for further developments. The homestead law was valid until 1993.
In Liechtenstein, 794-828 of the person and company law special provisions for homesteads were established in the articles, which are still in force today.
The Civil Code of Switzerland, the Institute of the homestead was repealed from 1 January 2000, after it was hardly ever used.