In 1870, a former slave and Union soldier staked a homestead in Nebraska

Homestead soddy in Box Butte County. Source: History Nebraska - Nebraska.gov In 1870, Robert Ball Anderson, a former slave and Union Army veteran, filed a claim for a 160-acre homestead in Butler County, Nebraska. Severe drought and grasshopper swarms destroyed his crops, forcing him to give up the property.Instead of abandoning his goals, Anderson spent years working as a railroad cook and farmhand to rebuild his savings. He later moved to Box Butte County in the Nebraska Panhandle, where he built a farm of more than 2,000 acres.According to historical records from History Nebraska and the National Park Service about African American homesteaders on the Great Plains, Anderson became one of the largest landowners in western Nebraska. He overcame natural disasters, financial losses, and racial discrimination to build his agricultural estate.Escape from slavery and Civil War serviceAnderson was born into slavery on 1 March 1843 on the Ball plantation in Green County, Kentucky. In his autobiography, From Slavery to Affluence: Memoirs of Robert Anderson, Ex-Slave, he described his childhood in small log cabins where enslaved families lived "pretty much as pigs in a pen."When Anderson w...