THE HOMESTEADERS

Settlers, not travellers.

AIMS

• To discover why the Homesteaders moved to the Plains.

• To look at the problems they faced.

• To understand how they overcame these problems.

WHY DID THE MOVE WEST?

• Government help:1. Homestead Act, 1862. Gave land free to people if they farmed it for 5 years.2. Timber Culture Act, 1873.3. Desert Land Act, 1877.

• End of the American Civil War.

• Railroads: travel and cheap land.

• Not much cheap land left in the West.

TASK

• Copy the following table across a double page.

• Use pages 86-87 to explain the problems.

• Leave the solution column blank until next lesson.

• Which of the problems were to do with living? Farming? Both?

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Water shortage

Weather extremes

Fuel

Dirt & disease

Building materials

Natural hazards

Ploughing

Growing crops

Protecting crops

THE SOLUTIONS• The following were all solutions for the

problems facing the Homesteaders.

• Match them up to the problems you looked at last lesson.

• Use pages 88-89 to fill in the last column in your table from last lesson.

• Who was most successful in dealing with the problems of living in the Plains? Indians or homesteaders?

Hard work

Other machinery

Sod-buster

Barbed wire

Hard winterwheat

Growing a surplus

Dry farming

Windmills

SOLUTIONS