The Homestead Act transferred over 270 million acres of public land into private hands for farming and ranching [10].
This expansion came at a heavy cost to Indigenous peoples, whose populations decreased rapidly due to war, disease, and the loss of traditional hunting grounds [20]. Evolution of the Western Western
Stories are frequently set in arid, desolate environments like isolated ranches, frontier towns, and rugged mountain ranges [25]. The Homestead Act transferred over 270 million acres