How did the Homestead Act created conflicts between settlers and native americans?
1 Answer
The homestead act basically gave free land which increased the amount of settlers, which raised the possibility for more conflicts between settlers and Native Americans.
Explanation:
When the national government wanted to promote settlement of western territories, Congress passed the Homestead act. The act would give 100 acres of land to a family provided they farmed on the land for at least 5 years. Now at this time since many Native Americans had already been driven out of their lands from the eastern part of America, they had moved to these western territories.
Since land was basically free, obviously there were more people willing to take up the offer and go out and settle some land. 100 acres in itself is a decent size, and since at that time people were mostly settling the mid west/great plains, there were more conflicts because the Native Americans in this area often relied on hunting Buffaloes and a lot were nomadic.
The amount of land settled by people combined with traveling Native Americans definitely allowed the creation of conflicts between Native Americans and settlers.
