On 20 May 1862, United States President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided for 160 acres of public land to be given to settlers who agreed to cultivate such plots within five years of claiming them. On 22 September of the same year, President Lincoln signed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, his first official announcement that people enslaved in states "in rebellion against the United States" would be freed on 1 January 1863. On that date, President Lincoln signed the Final Emancipation Proclamation—the same day that the Homestead Act went into effect. The Proclamation liberated the enslaved; the Act provided indigenous lands in the West for settlers to claim. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 July 2026)