The Land Grant Acts were several acts granting land owned by the federal government of the United States to settlers for the purpose of establishing farms. Consisting largely of land beyond the Mississippi, it was deeply formative to the United States - and shaped its identity in the years of the Reconstruction Era and the Belle Epoch, before it petered out in the tumult of the Polvamiento and got largely abolished in the 1940s.

The era of the land-grant brewed as a direct result of American western expansion. In particular, the Luisiana War (1825-8), which saw the United States double its land, increased a conversation that had already existed over how the US should sell off federal land. In the west, many wanted policies making land cheap to allow for swift settlement without dangerous speculation. In the northeast, there was a class divide - the upper class wanted land expensive to prevent industrial labor from moving west, while the lower class wanted land cheap so they could make their own path as producers. In the deep south, there were also many who wanted a restrictive land policy, to avoid the establishment of a free west that, combined with the north, could abolish. Many also wanted land expensive to pay off the national debt, or else to give revenues to the states for their own purposes. In the decades that followed the Luisiana War, land was intentionally auctioned off at high prices, as the low Compromise Tariff that followed the First Nullification Crisis made selling land the chief way the government raised money.

This obstacle only changed during the presidency of Daniel Webster (1845-1852). The Webster Tariff, issued in 1845, now made it viable to sell off land cheaply. The Union Party that Webster headed was one which, on principle, believed land ought to be sold at a high price so the revenues could be distributed to the states, a policy with some popularity. However, the crisis that followed the Panic of 1842 resulted in the Bank of the United States acquiring massive land from foreclosures - land which was technically owned by a corporation associated with the government rather than the government itself, and land which it often auctioned off to the highest bidder - typically an Eastern speculator, forcing western settlers off their land. This caused revulsion in the Northwest. At the same time, the outbreak of the Schleswig War in Europe essentially cut off the free supply of immigrant labor to eastern factories, which saw fears that easy sale of land would drain the west of labor. With the Northwest becoming a crucial battleground of the 1848 election - with President Webster's famed nationalism facing off against Calhoun's plot of an alliance between south and west - this became an electoral issue, and Webster's Union Party made easier sale of land part of its platform.

The conclusion of the election with Webster's narrow victory, and his values prevailing in the ensuing Second Nullification Crisis, saw the Union Party at its very peak. At this, Webster successfully obtained votes for the Preemption Act (1850). This made federal land available to men or widows in the form of 160 acre squares at the price of $1.50, which could be sold by credit, but to also account for the National Bank's massive landholdings obtained by foreclosure, this too was defined under the act as "federal land". But additionally, to ensure labor would not be drained, Webster ensured it would take effect in 1852, and in the interim he established immigration offices in Eastern Europe, to replace those who would choose to take up a western farm. This law would be greatly successful, and the frontier which had been eroded by National Bank foreclosure expanded. This proved particularly important in the Middle West, and in the decades that followed the frontier expanded decisively westwards. Additionally, Webster passed the Land Grant Colleges Act (1851), granting each state the right to establish one college endowed with federal land, on the model of the British land grant universities. This would prove highly important in the creation of the education system of the Middle West, and in the decades that followed it became important too for the education-sparse Interior and South.

However, in the decades that followed, the Preemption Act got viewed as wholly insufficient. $1.50 was still a high sum even under credit, and it served as a bar for the settlement of the west by the poor. Many sought a sort of land reform in which frontier land taken from indigenous peoples would be given to the poor. Thus, agitation steadily grew for a land grant act allowing settlers to claim their own farm merely by squatting. Such agitation was decisively blocked by the South - until the outbreak of the Liberty and Union War (1868-76). The Justice Party, regarding itself as the party of the common people, advocated a land grant act - and with the 1868 election, and the division of the United States into warring governments, the Justicialists took power over most of the north. Though this platform plank was ignored - the Constitutional Government instead focusing on the war effort and victory in the West - with the 1872 election coming up it had no excuse not to pursue the plank. The Land Grant Act (1872) carved federal land into potential townships of nine square miles, with one square mile in the center reserved for a town and/or park. And likewise, federal land was broadly defined to include not only the National Bank, but also the National Railway Company. Within these townships, settlers could acquire lots of 160 acres, with an aim to settle townships in blocks, and so long as they could prove they could settle the land, they got it. The exigencies of the War meant only a handful of lots got sold off until its conclusion in 1876; afterwards, it became extremely important in the western frontier, in the territories of Kances, Nibrasca, and Pembina. In the wake of Pikes' Peak Gold Rush (1878), such land claims extended further to Tahosa, although attempts to extend it into the Interior beyond that failed.

With the conclusion of the War, much southern land confiscated from Richmondites was now available for settlement, chiefly in the Deep South. Some of this, generals had already distributed, but others were left in a giant question mark. The Southern Land Grant Act (1877) made confiscated southern land available for settlement in the form of 80 acre plots. The bulk of this was distributed to freedmen on the land they had already been on as slaves, with some of it going to poor whites; that this land was chiefly in the deep south (and that land in the upper south often went to northern settlers) is chiefly responsible for the great divergence between the Upper South, with its large urban Colored population, and the Deep South where Coloreds were mostly rural until recently and the cities conspicuously whiter. Such land redistribution caused great anger among displaced elites, and this was doubtless a cause of the White Knight insurgencies which wracked the South over the 1880s. That these, too, saw land confiscations made more land available under the Act, and that such insurgencies were particularly strong in the Deep South also helped expand the great divergence between Upper and Deep South.

With the relative peace that followed the Liberty and Union War, deficiencies in the 1872 Act became increasingly apparent. For people to move west and improve claimed land, they needed to afford it, and this was too expensive for a common member of the working class. The labor wing of the Justice Party agitated for a new land grant act permitting loans to would-be settlers. Though the costs of the Antillian War (1880-4) made such an act financially impossible, upon its end, the Justice Party was finally able to pass the Land Grant Loan Act (1886). This granted $5000 in loans to aid settlers, so long as they were already citizens. This allowed many working-class people to migrate. Initially, with the disastrous 1886-7 winter, it was a disaster. Families with little experience in farming moved west, and the winter that followed was one that forced many to give up. In the years that followed, however, the situation improved. The bulk of settlement now came from those urbanites with recent farming backgrounds, among them Appalachians and Middle Westerners. In this way, the 1886 Act was incredibly formative in the populating of the Wet Plains. But one thing it did not do was revolutionize the labor situation in the US - the average urban worker remained an urban worker, even if their wages may have gone up somewhat with a tighter labor supply - and this marked the end of this species of land reform, deemed a dead end.

Additionally, the Land Grant Acts were part of the greater process of American expansion westwards, and this was something which saw plenty of land taking from indigenous peoples. This was either through dubious treaty or even simple theft, but either way the result was disastrous for them. For them - the northern ones, anyways - the icy lands of Minasota were reserved as the North-West Indian Territory, while in contrast the majority of the Five Civilized Tribes departed to Spanish Texas. But increasingly, many sneered at the "uncivilized" indigenous population, at this point surrounded by land opened to settlement, and so came attempts to change it. The Indian Land Grant College Act (1878) established a land grant college in the North-West Indian Territory, managed by a coterie of paternalistic easterners, part-indigenous but mostly-white locals, and a small number of token indigenous peoples - only the loosest oversight by the Council of Chiefs existed. This college, denominated Indian College, served chiefly as a normal school, to create a class of teachers who properly "civilized" would in turn impart western civilization to the rest of the indigenous peoples, including agriculture and Christianity. In this way, it was to serve as an alternative to the Indian Boarding Schools established in British North America by the Protectors of Indians, both more efficient and lacking its cruelty. Indian College would serve as the only college in the North-West Indian Territory until the arrival of Metis refugees from British North America, who in 1882 created the College of St. Catherine; together with Schultz College (created following the territory's statehood and opening to white settlement), these three colleges would be incorporated to create the University of Minasota.

Furthermore, the Indian Land Grant Act (1892) was intended to make land available for settlement to indigenous peoples. This would allow them to make land claims for their homesteads just like any white settler - but so long as they gave up tribal status and followed western farming practices. They would also be subject to taxation - a move which, implicitly, meant they were now citizens. This was intended to "civilize" indigenous peoples, and also to depopulate reservations so that, in the long term, they could be opened up to settlement. In practice, this ended up being a damp squib as few took up land grants - and those who did found it tough to prove to the satisfaction of land offices that they improved their land sufficiently to be said to own it. The result was that, aside from a few isolated townships, this had little effect - and today, even with a degree of white settlement, the frigid state of Minasota retains an indigenous majority.

Land settlement in the United States would in general stall by the turn of the century - but one area where it had touched little was the Interior, beyond the 102nd meridian. For, this area has semi-arid conditions and low rainfall, making it close to impossible to exploit it particularly under the ordinary Land Grant Acts. That land offices frowned heavily on loophole exploitation, and that the National Railway Company was wholly unwilling to create much more than railroads passing through the territory meant the infrastructure for settlement did not exist. For most of American history, the Interior was a desert to be ignored. The Interior Land Grant Act (1919) was intended to change that. Passed under the reforming Cravath administration - the first since the Liberty and Union War not to be a Justicialist administration - nine or more settlers were to collectively take up designated Interior Townships, assigned either near rivers or land close enough it could be plausibly irrigated. Each settler was, within the township, to take up land of 480 acres, not a square but (as in Buenaventura) a narrow rectangle hugging the water. With most of the land already surveyed, it was simple enough to carve out Interior Townships, and settlement proceeded in the 1920s. However, then came the 1930s. In neighboring Buenaventura, the over-farming of its own plains resulted in a loss of topsoil; when drought came, this simply caused it to blow off. The result was the disaster of the Polvamiento, and dust blizzards rapidly passed across the border. The Interior was awash with dust, and dust storms travelled as far east as New York and the middle of the Atlantic. This experience - of topsoil blowing off - occurred in the Interior as well, but to much less of an extent, but what it did cause was widespread abandonment of homesteads. With the US in general going through a boom period in the 1930s, farmers instead chose to move east and make up new lives either as farmers with smaller but more prosperous land, or else within the cities. One affect of this was undoubtedly the strengthening of the idea of the Interior as semi-arid desert in the American consciousness, fit only for the sort of ranching and placer mining that dominates the region today.

-passed under American Presidents > 1845-1852 Daniel Webster (Unionist) † as part of settlement with the west as part of his winning coalition

-broadly similar to OTL equivalent in letting settlers take land by credit but also including Bank of the United States foreclosure lands

-to make sure this doesn’t end up draining labor Webster opens up immigration offices well into Europe and sets it to take effect in 1852

-as part of sensitivity to western interests Webster establishes land grant colleges on the model of the ones established on basis of crown land in British Isles

-massive success

-part of Justice Party platform

-includes likewise bank foreclosure lands but also lands owned by railroad company

-160 acres per family, within townships of nine square miles each

-square mile in center for other activities such as a park, public edifices, and lots for non farmers

-not passed before due to Liberty and Union War (1868-76) and control of west in peril

-passed before election so it’s done before that, and with west now securely in its control it’s now viable

-a lot done with Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Pikes Peak Gold Rush (1878) in Tahosa

-its common use in far west only ends with Antillean War (1880-4)

-only sees decline until well into 20th century

-for Southern land now available at end of civil war

-most of this land is in Deep South

-distributed to southern whites and blacks

-with blacks getting the land they already worked on

-with mass white migration to Texas later to northern migrants as well

-more land available after confiscations in wake of White Knight insurgencies of the Antillean War (1880-4)

-establishes land grant college for Native Americans in Minasota Territory at Wetonqua

-to "civilize" them but in a nicer and upper-tier way to the boarding schools established by the Protectors of Indians in British North America

-school known at time as Indian College, today as the University of Minasota but name survives as college

-influenced by White Knight Rebellion happening in Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Pikes Peak Gold Rush (1878)

-due to there being a lot of southerners there

-results in considerably centralized mining land

-which is now licensed, in that people who wish to mine on government line have to receive license by Mining Office

-and licenses only handed to people who can swear the Ironclad Oath

-long term this decreases settlers in the Interior and leads to a lot of people who would otherwise move there instead moving to Buenaventura

-supplement to Land Grant Act passed due to view that it helped well-to-do farmers rather than common people

-provides 5000 dollars in loans to aid homesteading families

-results in many families from labor classes moving westwards

-though without farming experience many fail

-especially during the winter of 1886-7

-means there's a lot of land instead sold off

-settlement does happen though with help from farming associations

-instead bulk of settlement is of people from recent farming backgrounds who previously urbanized

-Appalachians

-as well as Middle Westerners

-and many immigrants

-to make land available to Native Americans

-and to "civilize" them as part of assimilatory process

-in return for them giving up tribal status, they become full citizens too

-result of low water in “Great American Desert” area

-land instead increased to 480 acres and in narrow rectangles hugging the water

-with land of nine or more within a drainage district being grouped together as an Interior Township

-ends in disaster with Dust Belt coming out of Texas as well as from similar conditions in settlement areas

-results in farm land abandoned for most part

-as federal land reserved for occasional cattle ranching use

-and with US in boom in the polvamiento [dust bowl - from ”polvo” meaning dust and “poblamiento” meaning settlement, to ironically mean “dustening”]era, it all goes fairly well for the ex farmers who move on

-results in the land getting back to either large cattle ranch owners or, by incentive, bought back by govt

-sees American Presidents > 1934-1940 Leonidas C. Dyer (Justice) try to combat the Interior crisis

-due to new office coming into power

-succeeds and greatly reduces Interior settlement