In 1870, a former slave and Union soldier staked a homestead in Nebraska; drought and grasshoppers cost him the claim, but he eventually owned more than 2,000 acres

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.

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