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Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie States1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Paul Wallace Gates
Paul Wallace Gates
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

Thomas Jefferson believed that political democracy could be maintained in the United States only if it were made to rest on the firm foundation of economic democracy. “The small landowners are the most precious part of the State,” he said, contrasting this ideal economy with a congested population in urban centers which would, he feared, threaten democracy because it would be subject to control by agitators and demagogues. He urged the adoption of a policy of cheap land that would attract laborers from abroad and from the eastern cities to the newly developing areas of the West and the South. Thus he proposed to create a nation of farm owners who would be the very warp and woof of democracy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , May 1941 , pp. 60 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

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References

2 Lipscomb, Andrew A., editor, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, 1903), XIX, 17Google Scholar. The essay by Henry George on “Jefferson and the Land Question,” (XIX, 17ff), is valuable, as is also Dorman, Joseph, “The Economic Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson,” Political Science Quarterly (March, 1940), LV, 98–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The early land system is best described in Treat, Payson J., The National Land System, 1785–1820 (New York, 1910)Google Scholar, and Hibbard, Benjamin H., History of the Public Land Policies (New York, 1924)Google Scholar.

4 Robbins, Roy M., “Preemption. A Frontier Triumph,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review (December, 1931), XVIII, 331–349CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the same author's “Horace Greeley: Land Reform and Unemployment, 1837–1862,” Agricultural History (January, 1933), VII, 18–41Google Scholar.

5 Donaldson, Thomas, The Public Domain (Washington, 1884), 237Google Scholar; Gates, Paul W., “Disposal of the Public Domain in Illinois,” Journal of Economic and Business History (February, 1931), III, 217ffGoogle Scholar.

6 The abstracts of military land warrant entries are in the General Land Office, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. They show that little land was located by the warrantees.

7 Commissioner of the General Land Office, Annual Report, 1849, 6–7Google Scholar.

8 Commissioner of the General Land Office, Annual Report, 1869, 21Google Scholar.

9 Congressional Record, 44th Congress, 1st Session, February 17, 1876, p. 1144.

10 Gates, Paul Wallace, “Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie Counties of Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History (March, 1939), XXXV, 4ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Section 14, Act of September 4, 1841, 5 United States Statutes-at-Large, 457.

12 Announcement of E. S. & J. Wadsworth & Co., Chicago, Illinois, in the Milwaukee Advertiser, December 22, 1838; circular of Anderson R. Murray, Wisconsin Land Agency, Madison, Wisconsin, January 10, 1850, Riggs MSS., Library of Congress; announcement of Richard F. Barrett in the Iowa Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, September 15, 1838, and the Iowa News, September 29, 1838.

13 Numerous letters and petitions from residents in the western states poured into the General Land Office in the thirties, forties, and fifties, urging that sales be postponed because of the poverty of the settlers, widespread sickness, poor crops, low prices, and fear of the loan shark.

14 Letter of Charles Durkee, R. H. Deming, F. S. Lovell, of South Port, Racine County, Wisconsin, to John Norvell, Detroit, Michigan, General Land Office correspondence in Treasury Annex, Washington, D. C. See also the Iowa Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, September 21, 1839, quoting the Chicago Democrat; Stuart, James, Three Years in North America (Edinburgh, 1833), II, 398Google Scholar.

15 Iowa Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser, September 21, 1839, quoting the Chicago Democrat.

16 I have described the land business of Easley & Willingham and Miles White in “Southern Investments in Northern Lands before the Civil War,” Journal of Southern History (May, 1939), V, 160–163Google Scholar.

17 After the Homestead Act was adopted and free lands were available, settlers still depended on loan sharks for loans with which they might commute their homestead claims into preemption entries. The five-year clause of the Homestead Act deterred many from taking advantage of the bounty of the Government.

18 New York Tribune, January 26, 1860.

19 Ibid., February 7, 1860.

20 A study of the deed records of a dozen prairie counties in Indiana and Illinois indicates that these prices were common.

21 New York Tribune, January 26, 1860.

22 Gates, Paul Wallace, “The Homestead Law in an Incongruous Land System,” American Historical Review (July, 1936), XLI, 652ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Capitalists rarely clashed with squatters over the selection of lands. They early acquired a respect for the law of the claim associations.

24 Descriptions of the geography and early settlement of the prairies of Illinois may be found in the following: Harlan H. Barrows, Geography of the Middle Illinois Valley (Division of the State Geological Survey, Bulletin, No. 15), Urbana, 1915; Poggi, E. M., The Prairie Province of Illinois (University of Illinois, Bulletin, XXXI), 1934Google Scholar; Boggess, Arthur Clinton, The Settlement of Illinois, 1778–1830 (Chicago Historical Society's Collection, V, Chicago, 1908)Google Scholar; Pooley, William Vipond, The Settlement of Illinois from 1830 to 1850 (University of Wisconsin, Bulletin, “History Series,” I, Madison, 1908)Google Scholar.

25 I have described Ellsworth's part in the settlement of the Wabash Valley in the Indiana Magazine of History, XXXV, 6–15. With his son, Henry W. Ellsworth, Henry L. Ellsworth prepared a booklet called, Valley of the Upper Wabash, Indiana, with Hints on Its Agricultural Advantages …, to call attention to the prairie lands of the Wabash (New York, 1838). The statistics concerning land entries were compiled from the abstracts of land entries in the General Land Office.

26 Jones, A. D., Illinois and the West (Boston, 1838), 147–148Google Scholar. Another writer of travel guides contended that nearly three fourths of Mitchell's book was “unwarrantably and illegally taken” from his writings. Peck, J. M., The Traveller's Directory for Illinois (New York, 1839–1840), 10Google Scholar. The writing of emigrant guides and travel accounts, which already had assumed large proportions, was, in no small degree, a matter of borrowing copious extracts from previous guides and serving them up as new and original material. The wonder is not that contemporaries were taken in by these compilers and plagiarists but that historians have so frequently used the literature of land promoters as reliable sources.

27 First Annual Report of the Trustees of the American Land Company (New York, 1836); Catalogue of 96,046 acres of land belonging to the American Land Co. (New York, 1844); Catalogue of lands in the Northwestern States belonging to the American Land Company (New York, 1847); abstracts of land entries, General Land Office.

28 Some of these entries were made not for speculation but for actual settlers. Thus Wadsworth & Dyer of Chicago, Richard F. Barrett, of Springfield, Illinois, and Lyle Benedict, of Albany, New York, made most, if not all, of their entries for settlers. Of course, as has been pointed out above, settlers frequently found it impossible to meet the heavy interest payments and sooner or later lost their claims to the money lenders.

Some of these entries were made by associations but the titles were taken in the name of a trustee or individual member. Other entries were made by westerners and shortly afterwards conveyed to eastern investors. Some doubtless were entered for colonies.

29 The papers of Romulus Riggs in the Library of Congress contain frequent discussions of sales and leases of these lands.

30 House Executive Documents, 26th Congress, 1st Session, 1840, Doc. 262.

31 The sale of tax-delinquent land in the Military Tract and the issuance of tax titles produced a sharp clash between the holders of patent titles and the purchasers of tax titles. The former organized the Patent Title Association to defend their interests. Peoria Register and North-Western Gazatteer, September 3, 1841, March 11, May 6, 13, August 26, September 30, October 7, 1842.

32 Annual Report (New York and Boston Illinois Land Company, 1837); For Sale the Follounng Lands, Situate in the Military Tract and Belonging to the New York and Boston Illinois Land Company (n.d.n.p.); Proceedings of the Illinois Land Company (New York, 1839)Google Scholar; An Act to incorporate the Quincy House Company, Passed March 1, 1839 (New York, 1839)Google Scholar; General John Tillson, History of the City of Quincy, Illinois (Chicago, n.d.); Remarks on the Affairs of the Illinois Land Company (New York, 1840)Google Scholar.

33 George, Henry, Our Land and Land Policy, National and State (San Francisco 1871), 4Google Scholar.

34 George W. Julian quoted this figure in a speech of March 7, 1868, Congressional Globe, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 1867–1878, p. 1713.

35 Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 2d Sess., 1251–1253 (June 10, 1850).

36 Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Sess., 2249 (May 21, 1862).

37 Lafayette Free Press and Commercial Advertiser (Lafayette, Indiana), May 27, 1836Google Scholar; Logansport Canal Telegraph (Logansport, Indiana), March 18, 1837Google Scholar; Logansport Herald (Logansport, Indiana), January 29, 1840Google Scholar; Tippecanoe Journal (Lafayette, Indiana), February 2, 1843, July 31, 1845Google Scholar; Iowa Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser (Burlington, Iowa), April 18, 1840Google Scholar; Iowa Standard (Bloomington, Iowa), April 29, 1841, September 24, 1841, May 16, 1844Google Scholar; Sauk County Standard (Baraboo, Wisconsin), September 25, December 12, 1850, January 16, 1851Google Scholar; Prairie Chieftain (Monticello, Indiana), December 23, 1852Google Scholar; Iowa Star (Des Moines, Iowa), February 3, 1853Google Scholar; Wabash Weekly Republican (Paris, Illinois), August 18, 1854Google Scholar.

38 Mankin Champion, McDonough County, Illinois, March 31, August 2, 1844, July 21, 1845, June 6, 1846, to Romulus Riggs; Daniel Bush, Pittsfield, Pike County Illinois, May 1, 1845, to same, Riggs Mss.

39 The Corcoran Mss., Library of Congress, contain many letters concerning rents, improvements, tenants, and taxes. I have described Corcoran's land investments in more detail in the Journal of Southern History, V, 164–166.

40 Indiana Magazine of History, XXXV, 12.

41 History of McLean County, Illinois (Chicago, 1879), 499Google Scholar.

42 Who's Who in America, XVI (Chicago, 1930), 2259Google Scholar.

43 Chicago Tribune, clipped in the Bloomington Pantograph (Bloomington, Illinois), March 21, 1887Google Scholar.

44 Chicago Tribune, clipped in Lincoln Herald (Lincoln, Illinois), March 29, 1887Google Scholar. See also the History of Logan County, Illinois (Chicago, 1886), 367–369Google Scholar.

45 See the Bloomington Pantograph and the Lincoln Herald for 1887.

46 Gates, Paul W., “Large Scale Farming in Illinois,” Agricultural History (January, 1932), VI, 14–25Google Scholar.

47 Harper's Weekly (September 23, 1871), 897.

48 Zee, Jacob Van Der, The British in Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa, 1922). 59ffGoogle Scholar.

49 Briggs, Harold E., “Early Bonanza Fanning in the Red River Valley of the North,” Agricultural History (January, 1932), VI 26–37Google Scholar, and the same author's “The Development of Agriculture in Territorial Dakota,” The Culver Stockton Quarterly (January, 1931), VII, No. 1, 21Google Scholar.

50 Numerous other large farms in Iowa attracted attention. Thus the 2,100-acre farm of the Day Brothers in Winneshiek County, of which 1,800 acres were under plow, is described in the Iowa Homestead (August 20, 1870); the 3,000-acre farm of R. A. Babbage, in Butler County, in Ibid., March 10, 1871; the Timothy Day farm of 3,500 acres in Van Buren County, is given attention in the Iowa Farmer and Horticulturist (September, 1856), IV, 121–122; the 1,400-acre farm of Alfred Churchill in Clinton County is described in the Lyons Mirror, clipped in the Iowa Farmer and Horticulturist (July, 1856), IV, 57; Peter Melendy's farm of 1,100 acres wins attention in Ibid. (July, 1856), IV, 56 and (October, 1856), IV, 135–136 and in Andreas, A. T., Historical Atlas of Iowa (Chicago, 1875), 277Google Scholar; the 1,500-acre farm of J. A. Carpenter, in Lyon County is discussed in the Des Moines Republican of June 18, 1872, clipped in the Sioux City Journal, June 22, 1872; the George M. Schmidt farm of 4,000–5,000 acres is mentioned in Ibid., January 12, 1872; the 3,200-acre farm of L. W. Tubbs, the 2,000-acre farm of H. W. Summers, the 2,000-acre farm of S. D. Davis, the 1,500-acre farm of W. G. Summers and the 1,200-acre farm of Valentine Plumb are all mentioned in the History of Mills County, Iowa (Des Moines, 1881).

51 The statistics of large-scale farms and tenancy have been compiled from the United States Census Reports, 1860–1930.