PRE-EMPTIONS (HOMESTEADS)
The purpose of Headrights was to encourage settlers to immigrate to Texas. Pre-emptions (or Homesteads) had the same basic objective.
Essentially, the Homestead Laws provided that a person who had settled upon a tract of land and who had improved it could claim the land. However, the settler could not claim more than a certain number of acres, and he could not claim the property if someone else had already claimed it.
The meaning of PRE-EMPTION becomes clearer with the dictionary definition: “The act or right of claiming property before others”.
Homestead or Pre-emption grants were made under a number of laws.
The first, passed January 22, 1845, declared that the settler could claim up to 320 acres. He was required to present land certificates within three years. Later, this time was extended to January 1, 1854.
The next law was dated February 7, 1853, but there was very little difference between this and the 1845 legislation.
Both the 1845 and 1853 laws were repealed, however, by the Act of February 13, 1854, which reduced the amount of land which a settler could claim as a pre-emption to 160 acres. The 1854 law further specified that the pre-emptor was required to live on the land for three years. This law was repealed on August 26, 1856, and Acts of November 12, 1866, and August 12, 1870, restored pre-emption laws similar to the 1854 legislation. The 1866 and 1870 laws were made a part of the Constitution of 1876, and settlers continued to claim land under pre-emption laws until 1898, when litigation in the courts brought this class of claims to an end.
The main reason for the end of pre-emptions was that homesteaders ran out of public domain on which to settle. However, 4,847,136 acres were granted under Homestead or Pre-emption laws.