Several references are made to the Allotment Act, whereby Indians, i.e. Native Americans, were given land to live on. This was an actual law, the Dawes Act of 1887 (amended in 1891, and in 1898 by the Curtis Act, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act). Indians would receive 160 acres to live on and could be granted US citizenship. This was similar to the Homestead Act of 1863, which gave 160 acres of land to settlers to "prove up" the land. The first Homestead was granted outside Beatrice, Nebraska on January 1, 1863.