 Goal: Encourage settlement of the West  Offer 160 acres of land per family  Requirements Within five years must have  House and farm  If successful, land was theirs

 Intended for poor families Cost of outfitting the move to expensive  Law was ambiguous Fraud and abuse prevalent Became land grab for  Land speculators  Cattlemen  Miners  Railroads

 African Americans who moved from the post-Reconstruction South to Kansas  25,000 Africans Americans migrated West

 Houses No lumber, used available resources Dugouts-homes built into the side of hills Soddy- freestanding homes made of blocks of prairie turf

 1837 – steel plow, John Deere  Reaping machines, Cyrus McCormick  Spring tooth harrow  Grain Drill  Barbed Wire  Corn binder