Land and Homesteading

Question 1

Metes and Bounds

Answer 1

method of subdividing lands using compass points and directions, typically using physical features of the local geography

Question 2

Land Ordinance of 1785

Answer 2

Created the Public Land Survey System
*Also called Rectangular Survey System
*standardized system for Federal land surveys
*eased boundary conflicts

Question 3

Public Land Survey System

Answer 3

standardized system for Federal land surveys
*eased boundary conflicts

Question 4

Township

Answer 4

The major unit of the PLSS system; 36 square miles

Question 5

Section

Answer 5

1 square mile=640 acres–the minor unit of the PLSS
system.
*Quarter sections=160 acres

Question 6

Preemption

Answer 6

individual’s right to settle land first and pay later
*Basically “squatters rights”
*essentially an early form of credit

Question 7

Homestead act 1862

Answer 7

Homestead Act signed by Abraham Lincoln (May 1862)
*Homesteaders had to live on and “improve” the land for 5 years,
*Must build a 12-by-14 dwelling and grow crops.
*No race or gender requirements
*By 1900 ¼ of black farmers owned their farm
*Around 10-12 percent of claims to women
Opened lands in 33 states,
*Centered on states north of Texas and west of
the Mississippi River
*Percentage of Each State Claimed
*Nebraska: 45 percent
*North Dakota and South Dakota: 41%
*Montana and Oklahoma: 34%
*Colorado: 33%.

Question 8

Title

Answer 8

The legal concept of ownership

Question 9

Deed

Answer 9

Legal document that transfers ownership of property

Question 10

Homestead act: Politics

Answer 10

Yeoman Farmer” ideal: (Jefferson)
*Northern factories owners feared a mass departure of their cheap labor
force
*Southern states worried that rapid settlement of western territories
would give rise to new states populated by small farmers opposed to
slavery
*Why would small farmers oppose slavery?
*Homestead Act passed during Civil war—Southern delegation absent

Question 11

Squatting

Answer 11

pervasive, insistent, unstoppable, and enjoyed considerable
public sympathy” –from Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History
*Unlike modern development, the process often occurred in reverse
order: people move in, laws and surveys catch up later.

Question 12

Minimum efficient scale

Answer 12

Scale at which long-run average costs are minimized.
*Too small: fixed costs dominate and average costs are high

Question 13

Public Domain

Answer 13

Land owned by the United States government. Public
domain consisted of nearly 1.44 billion acres of land.
*51 percent of public domain transferred to private owners

Question 14

Land Runs

Answer 14

Occurred when previously restricted land (usually former Indian
lands) opened for homesteading on first-come basis
*Biggest: Oklahoma Land Rush of April 22, 1889
*“Sooner” and “Eighty-Niner”
*Lots of fraud/cheating
*replaced with sealed-bid auctions

Question 15

Externality

Answer 15

the economic concept of uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption that affect consumer utility and enterprise cost outside the market mechanism

Question 16

National Monument

Answer 16

Antiquities Act (1906)
*Power to president to create national
monuments from Federal land
*Purpose is to protect natural, cultural,
or scientific resources
*Signed by T. Roosevelt (18 monuments)
*Tradition among Presidents
*All but 4 since 1906 have used power
(Nixon, Ford, Reagan, H.W. Bush)
*Obama: 26—most ever
*Trump: reduced Bears Ears by 85%

Question 17

Antiquities act

Answer 17

Power to president to create national
monuments from Federal land
*Purpose is to protect natural, cultural,
or scientific resources
*Signed by T. Roosevelt (18 monuments)

Question 18

Morrill Land Grant Acts

Answer 18

Morrill Act (1862)
*Land to each state for colleges
*Required to teach Agriculture, Engineering, and Military Tactics
*“accessible to all, but especially to the sons of toil.”—Senator Morrill
*Morrill Act (1890)
*Aimed at former Confederate states
*Must show race not an admissions criterion or to designate separate land-grant institution
*Many of the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

Question 19

Common Pool Resource

Answer 19

public and private good in that is shared (non-rivalrous) but also scarce, having a finite supply

Question 20

Free riders

Answer 20

Someone who enjoys the benefits of a good but
does not pay

Question 21

Panic of 1837

Answer 21

Many Bank Runs: Several Banks in New
York City ran out of gold and silver
*Bank Run: When many depositors try to
withdraw money because they believe the
bank may become insolvent

Question 22

Specie

Answer 22

money in the form of coins or gold

Question 23

Financial crisis

Answer 23

n event where some financial assets suddenly lose a
large part of their value
*Stock market crashes, real estate crashes, bond defaults, etc.
*Caused by speculative lending practices (especially in land)
*Made worse by sharp decline in cotton prices
*Accelerated by the “Specie Circular” (1836)–Presidential Executive Order
(Jackson) that required specie (gold or silver) for public land sales

Question 24

Speculation

Answer 24

Purchase of an asset with the hope that its value will
quickly increase
*Note: can also speculate on price declines via short sales

Question 25

Bank Run

Answer 25

When many depositors try to
withdraw money because they believe the
bank may become insolvent

Question 26

Deposit Insurance

Answer 26

government
programs that protect the value of
deposits even if banks fail

Question 27

Price Bubble

Answer 27

inflated prices for assets that are inconsistent with
fundamental values
*Intuition: the price of a stock should be based on future cash flows
*Examples: Dutch tulip bubble, panic of 1837 (land, cotton, slaves), comic book
speculation, dot-com bubble, mortgage securities, many others…

Question 28

Fractional Reserve Banking

Answer 28

Banks only hold a small percentage of
deposits in currency
*Bank runs are prevented today by Federal
Deposit Insurance (FDIC) and other
banking regulations

Question 29

Forced Rider

Answer 29

Someone who must pay for a good but does not
benefit.