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Both the 1845 and 1853 laws were repealed, however, by the Act of February 13, 1854, which reduced the amount of land which a settler could claim as a pre-emption to 160 acres.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 This law was repealed on August 26, 1856, and Acts of November 12, 1866, and August 12, 1870, restored pre-emption laws similar to the 1854 legislation.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.
BOUNTIES AND DONATIONS
After the Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas granted its soldiers certificates for 640 acres of land. This was to go to all who were engaged in the Battle of San Jacinto, all who were wounded the day before, all who guarded the army’s baggage near Harrisburg, all who entered Bexar from the morning of the 5th to the 10th of December, 1835, all who took part in the reduction of the fort at Bexar, all who were in action under Colonels Fannin and Ward on March 19, 1836, and to the heirs of those who were killed at the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836.
An interesting feature of the Act of December 21, 1837, which granted these lands, was that veterans receiving lands under this act could not sell or mortgage those lands.
More than 40 years later, on April 26, 1879, the State Legislature granted another 640 acres to indigent veterans of the Texas Revolution, after repealing an act which granted those veterans a pension of $150 per year.