(Encyclopedia) PhilemonPhilemonfĭlēˈmən [key], letter of the New Testament, written to a Colossian named Philemon by Paul, probably when the latter was a prisoner in Rome (c.a.d. 60). Onesimus,…
(Encyclopedia) maroon, term for a fugitive slave in the 17th and 18th cent. in the West Indies and Guiana, or for a descendant of such slaves. They were called marron by the French and cimarrón by…
(Encyclopedia) Homestead Act, 1862, passed by the U.S. Congress. It provided for the transfer of 160 acres (65 hectares) of unoccupied public land to each homesteader on payment of a nominal fee…
(Encyclopedia) Dawes Act or General Allotment Act, 1887, passed by the U.S. Congress to provide for the granting of landholdings (allotments, usually 160 acres/65 hectares) to individual Native…
(Encyclopedia) Smith Act, 1940, passed by the U.S. Congress as the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The act, which made it an offense to advocate or belong to a group that advocated the violent…
(Encyclopedia) Preemption Act, statute passed (1841) by the U.S. Congress in response to the demands of the Western states that squatters be allowed to preempt lands. Pioneers often settled on public…
(Encyclopedia) Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European…
