Read the excerpt from the US Department of the Interior’s homesteading timeline. 1865 – March 3: An 1865 appropriations act for expenses of the Indian Department extended the first possibility for some Indians to receive homesteads under the 1862 Homestead Act, but under conditions of essentially giving up their cultural affiliation. It was also one of the earliest laws outlining the course by which Indians (though just for the Stockbridge Munsee Tribes of Indiana) could become U. S. citizens. . . .

1884 – July 4, 1884: Another section within an appropriations act further defined how Indians could homestead, with their homesteads to be held in trust by the federal government for 25 years.

1887 – February 8, 1887: Passage of the Dawes Act provided for the division of tribally held lands under treaty into individually-owned tracts, with "surplus” lands being opened up to homesteading and other forms of disposal. Over the 47 years that the law was in effect until 1934, about 90 million acres of land left Indian ownership.

–"Explore the Homesteading Timeline,”
US Department of the Interior

Which statement best explains the purpose of the Homestead Act of 1862?
A. The Homestead Act was intended to relieve the growing pressures of urbanization in industrial cities.
B. The Homestead Act was intended to solidify the Standard Oil monopoly in the West by expanding its market.
C. The Homestead Act was intended to encourage the occupation and improvement of the West.
D. The Homestead Act was intended to justify the expansion of the US military into the West to counter unrest on reservation land.