Abstract:How many African Americans filed homestead claims in the Great Plains and successfully obtained their land patents? Previous scholars have ventured conjectures on the number, using contemporary news accounts and similarly incomplete and flawed sources. The General Land Office homesteading records do not identify a claimant’s race, so to count black homesteaders one must crossreference homestead files with other records such as the census, a tedious and labor-intensive task. This study undertakes the first systematic accounting based on cross-referencing in eight Great Plains states. We find that in these states more than 1,800 black claimants successfully proved up. If we also add Oklahoma, it is likely that more than 3,400 black claimants homesteaded in the Great Plains. They gained ownership of nearly 650,000 acres of land. Counting claimants’ family members, who typically made crucial contributions to the homestead’s success, more than 14,600 black people lived in families of successful homesteaders. Today there are probably between 100,000 and 250,000 living descendants of the original black homesteaders.

中文翻译：

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“草原上的迦南”：大平原非裔美国宅基地数量的新证据

摘要：有多少非裔美国人在大平原提出宅基地主张并成功获得土地专利？以前的学者利用当代新闻报道和同样不完整和有缺陷的来源，对这个数字进行了大胆的猜测。土地总署的宅基地记录不识别索赔人的种族，因此要计算黑人宅基地，必须将宅基地文件与人口普查等其他记录进行交叉参考，这是一项繁琐且劳动密集型的任务。本研究首次在大平原的八个州进行了基于交叉参考的系统核算。我们发现，在这些州，有超过 1,800 名黑人索赔人被成功证明。如果我们还加上俄克拉荷马州，很可能有超过 3,400 名黑人索赔人在大平原定居。他们获得了近 650,000 英亩土地的所有权。算上索赔人的家庭成员，他们通常为宅基地的成功做出了重要贡献，超过 14,600 名黑人生活在成功的宅基地中。今天可能有 100,000 到 250,000 名原始黑人自耕农的活着的后代。