FRONTIER LIFE – AUSTRALIA AND AMERICA
Life on the American and Australian frontiers has a
strikingly similar history. For example, take the The American Homestead Act,
and the Australian Act of Selection.
America: The original Homestead Act was signed into law
by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20th, 1862. It gave applicants
freehold title to up to 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River. The law required only three steps from
the applicant - file an application, improve the land, then file for a deed of
title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves,
could file a claim on the provisions that they were over the age of twenty one
and had lived on the land for five years.
The Homestead Act's lenient terms proved to be ill-fated for
many settlers. Claimants didn’t have to own farming implements or even to have
had any farming experience. The allocated tracts of land may have been adequate
in humid regions, but were not large enough to support plains settlers where
lack of water reduced yields. Speculators often got control of homestead land by hiring
phony claimants or buying up abandoned farms.
Most of us visualise the frontier
home as a rustic log cabin nestled in a peaceful mountain valley or on a
sweeping green plain. But in reality, the "little house on the
prairie" was often not much more than a shack or a hastily scratched out
hole in the ground. In the treeless lands of the plains and prairies, log
cabins were out of the question so
homesteaders turned to the ground beneath their feet for shelter. The
sod house, or "soddy," was one of the most common dwellings in the
frontier west. The long, tough grasses of the plains had tight, intricate root
systems, and the earth in which they were contained could be cut into flexible,
yet strong, bricks.
Ground
soaked by rains or melting snow was ideal for starting sod house construction.
When the earth was soft and moist, homesteaders would break the soil with an
ox- or horse-drawn sod cutter, which was an instrument similar to a farming plough.
Sod cutters produced long, narrow strips of sod, which could then be chopped
into bricks with an axe. These two- to three-foot square, four-inch thick sod
bricks were then stacked to form the walls of the sod house. Soddy roofs were
constructed by creating a thin layer of interlacing twigs, thin branches, and hay,
which were then covered over with another layer of sod. To save time many sod
houses were built into the sides of hills or banks. Some settlers gouged a hole
in a hill side, so they only had to build a front wall and roof.
As a result of their extremely thick walls, soddies were cool in the summer and
warm in the winter. Soddies were also extremely cheap to build. Of course,
there were drawbacks to sod-house living. As the house was built of dirt and
grass, it was constantly infested with bugs, mice and snakes. The sod roofs often
leaked, which turned the dirt floor into a quagmire. Wet roofs took days to dry
out and the enormous weight of the wet earth often caused roof cave-ins. Even
in the very best weather, sod houses were plagued with problems. When the sod
roof became extremely dry, dirt and grass continually rained down on the
occupants of the house.
A
typical American log cabin measured about ten by twenty feet, regardless of the
number of inhabitants. Settlers often built lofts across the cabin roof or
lean-tos across the rear of the cabin to give the family more space. Typically,
frontier cabins featured only one room, which served as kitchen, dining room,
living room, workroom, and bedroom.
Homesteaders could often build
a log cabin in a matter of days, using only an axe and auger. No nails were
required for the task. The first step in construction was to build a stone or
rock foundation, to keep the logs off the ground and prevent rot. Once the
foundation was laid, settlers would cut down trees and square off the logs.
These logs were then "notched" in the top and bottom of each end then
stacked to form walls. The notched logs fitted snugly together at the corners
of the cabin, and held the walls in place. After the logs were stacked, gaps
remained in the walls. Settlers had to jam sticks and wood chips into the gaps,
then they filled in the remaining gaps with cement made out of earth, sand, and
water. Fireplaces were built of stone, and often had stick-and-mud chimneys.
Most cabins had dirt or gravel floors, which had to be raked daily to preserve
their evenness.
Australia: In the
colony of
Victoria
the 1860 Land Act allowed free selection of crown land.
This included land already occupied by the
squatters, (wealthy land owners) who had managed to circumvent the law for
years and keep land that they did not legally own.
The Act allowed selectors access to the squatters’ land, and
they could purchase between 40 and 320 acres of crown land, but after that, the
authorities left them to fend for themselves. Not an easy task against the
wealthy, often ruthless squatters who were incensed at what they thought was
theft of their land.
In 1861 the Act of Selection was intended to encourage
closer settlement, based on intensive agriculture. Selectors often came into
conflict with squatters, who already occupied land and were prepared to fight
to keep it. The bitterness ran deep for many years, often erupting into
violence.
The first permanent homesteads on the Australian frontier were constructed
using posts and split timber slabs. The posts were set into the ground, about
three feet apart, according to the desired layout. Slabs of timber were then
dropped into the slots. A sapling or similar, straight piece of timber ran
across the top of the posts, which allowed them to be tied together so they
could support the roof. Clay was often plugged in between the joins and splits
of the cladding to stop draughts. The internal walls were sometimes plastered
with clay and straw, lined with hessian/calico, white washed or simply left as
split timber. Roofs were pitched using saplings straight from the bush and
often clad with bark. Early settlers learnt from the aborigines that large
sheets of bark could be cut and peeled off a variety of trees and used as
sheets to clad the roof.
So, it can be seen that there is not much difference between the Australian Act of Selection and the American Homestead Act. In both countries frontier life was tough, and only the strong and resilient survived.
Margaret Tanner writes historical romance set in Australia.
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