The slow migration west of our ancestors was primarily dependant on two interrelated issues

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Reynardine: This ballad was printed on broadsides in England and Ireland in the 19th Century. The song appears in George Petrie's collection (1855), where he notes it is "from a ballad singer at Rathmines Nov. 1852." Notes by Washington Irving indicate the song was sung by Kentucky frontiersmen prior to 1832.
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The slow migration west of our ancestors was primarily dependant on two interrelated issues: The Land and Indian policies of the Congress. As the new nation acquired new territory the frontier slowly moved westward. As the nation encroached upon the various Indian nations, laws were passed to accommodate the westward expansion.

The frontier did much to shape American life. Conditions along the entire Atlantic seaboard stimulated migration to the newer regions. From New England, where the soil was incapable of producing high yields of grain, came a steady stream of men and women who left their coastal farms and villages to take advantage of the rich interior land of the continent. In the backcountry settlements of the Carolinas and Virginia, people handicapped by the lack of roads and canals giving access to coastal markets, and suffering from the political dominance of the Tidewater planters, also moved westward. By 1800 the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys were becoming a great frontier region. "Hi-o, away we go, floating down the river on the O-hi-o," became the song of thousands of migrants.

The westward flow of population in the early 19th century led to the division of old territories and the drawing of new boundaries. As new states were admitted, the political map stabilized east of the Mississippi River. From 1816 to 1821, six states were created -- Indiana, Illinois and Maine (which were free states), and Mississippi, Alabama and Missouri (slave states). The first frontier had been tied closely to Europe, the second to the coastal settlements, but the Mississippi Valley was independent and its people looked west rather than east.

Frontier settlers were a varied group. One English traveler described them as "a daring, hardy race of men, who live in miserable cabins.... They are unpolished but hospitable, kind to strangers, honest and trustworthy. They raise a little Indian corn, pumpkins, hogs and sometimes have a cow or two.... But the rifle is their principal means of support." Dexterous with the axe, snare and fishing line, these men blazed the trails, built the first log cabins and confronted Native American tribes, whose land they occupied.

As more and more settlers penetrated the wilderness, many became farmers as well as hunters. A comfortable log house with glass windows, a chimney and partitioned rooms replaced the cabin; the well replaced the spring. Industrious settlers would rapidly clear their land of timber, burning the wood for potash and letting the stumps decay. They grew their own grain, vegetables and fruit; ranged the woods for deer, wild turkeys and honey; fished the nearby streams; looked after cattle and hogs. Land speculators bought large tracts of the cheap land and, if land values rose, sold their holdings and moved still farther west, making way for others.

Doctors, lawyers, storekeepers, editors, preachers, mechanics and politicians soon followed the farmers. The farmers were the sturdy base, however. Where they settled, they intended to stay and hoped their children would remain after them. They built large barns and brick or frame houses. They brought improved livestock, plowed the land skillfully and sowed productive seed. Some erected flour mills, sawmills and distilleries. They laid out good highways, built churches and schools. Incredible transformations were accomplished in a few years. In 1830, for example, Chicago, Illinois, was merely an unpromising trading village with a fort; but long before some of its original settlers had died, it had become one of the largest and richest cities in the nation.

Farms were easy to acquire. Government land after 1820 could be bought for $1.25 for about half a hectare, and after the 1862 Homestead Act, could be claimed by merely occupying and improving it. In addition, tools for working the land were easily available. It was a time when, in a phrase written by John Soule and popularized by journalist Horace Greeley, young men could "go west and grow with the country."

Except for a migration into Mexican-owned Texas, the westward march of the agricultural frontier did not pass Missouri until after 1840. In 1819, in return for assuming the claims of American citizens to the amount of $5 million, the United States obtained from Spain both Florida and Spain's rights to the Oregon country in the Far West. In the meantime, the Far West had become a field of great activity in the fur trade, which was to have significance far beyond the value of the skins. As in the first days of French exploration in the Mississippi Valley, the trader was a pathfinder for the settlers beyond the Mississippi. The French and Scots-Irish trappers, exploring the great rivers and their tributaries and discovering all the passes of the Rocky and Sierra Mountains, made possible the overland migration of the 1840s and the later occupation of the interior of the nation.

Overall, the growth of the nation was enormous: population grew from 7.25 million to more than 23 million from 1812 to 1852, and the land available for settlement increased by almost the size of Europe -- from 4.4 million to 7.8 million square kilometers. Still unresolved, however, were the basic conflicts rooted in sectional differences which, by the decade of the 1860s, would explode into civil war. Inevitably, too, this westward expansion brought settlers into conflict with the original inhabitants of the land: the Indians.

In the first part of the 19th century, the most prominent figure associated with these conflicts was Andrew Jackson, the first "Westerner" to occupy the White House. In the midst of the War of 1812, Jackson, then in charge of the Tennessee militia, was sent into southern Alabama, where he ruthlessly put down an uprising of Creek Indians. The Creeks soon ceded two-thirds of their land to the United States. Jackson later routed bands of Seminole Indians from their sanctuaries in Spanish-owned Florida.

In the 1820s, President Monroe's secretary of war, John C. Calhoun, pursued a policy of removing the remaining tribes from the old Southwest and resettling them beyond the Mississippi. Jackson continued this policy as president.

In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, providing funds to transport the eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi. In 1834 a special Indian territory was set up in what is now Oklahoma. In all, the tribes signed 94 treaties during Jackson's two terms, ceding millions of hectares to the federal government and removing dozens of tribes from their ancestral homelands.

Perhaps the most egregious chapter in this unfortunate history concerned the Cherokees, whose lands in western North Carolina and Georgia had been guaranteed by treaty since 1791. Among the most progressive of the eastern tribes, the Cherokees' fate was sealed when gold was discovered on their land in 1829. Even a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court proved little help. With the acquiescence of the Jackson administration, the Cherokees were forced to make the long and cruel trek to Oklahoma in 1835. Many died of disease and privation in what became known as the "Trail of Tears."

Source: An Outline of American History (1954); CHAPTER 5: Westward Expansion and Regional Differences;

Since the country' earliest days, Congress recognized the public lands as a national asset. As the nation acquired new territory through treaty, purchase, or conquest Congress directed that it be made available in order to promote settlement of the West. Much of the original 1.8 billion acres of the public domain was given or sold to individuals, corporations, and states.

The Louisiana Purchase; from France, 30 Apr 1803	Includes most of the western drainage basin of the Mississippi River; price paid, $27,267,621.98
Florida; by treaty of 22 Feb 1819, with Spain	The present State of Florida; price paid Spain, $6,489,768.
Oregon; Title established in 1846, on basis of exploration and occupation, theretofore in dispute with Great Britain	Territory embraces the present States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
From Mexico, by treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, 2 Feb 1848, at the close of the war with Mexico	This cession gave the United States the States of California, Nevada, and part of Colorado, also Utah and part of Arizona and New Mexico; price paid Mexico, $15,000,000.
From Texas: By act of Congress 9 Sep 1850	The United States purchased from Texas the claim to certain lands now included in Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and also the "public land strip," for which $16,000,000. was paid.
From Mexico, by purchase, 30 Dec 1953, known as the "Gadsden purchase."	Territory in New Mexico and Arizona; Purchased to rectify the southern boundary of the United States; purchase price, $10,000,000.
Alaska, by purchase 3 Mar 1867	State of Alaska, purchased from the Empire of Russia; purchase price, $7,200,000.

When Europeans first sailed to America, the tribes were sovereign by nature. They conducted their own affairs and depended upon no other source of power to uphold their acts of government. Colonial governments and later the federal government of the United States treated with the indigenous nations as they did with foreign nations and allowed them to regulate their own affairs. The young United States made treaties with hundreds of Indigenous American Nations, exchanging lands for payments and access rights. Treaties are defined as legally binding contracts between parties that cannot be changed or cancelled without agreement by all parties. Indigenous nations were recognized as separate, sovereign entities and treaties established distinct boundaries between Indian and non-Indian territories. Within their territories, Indigenous Americans governed their own internal matters. This is reflective of the general rule of international law that states that the internal laws of acquired territories continue in force. Indigenous American nations were not conquered by the U.S. armed forces, as many believe. Rather, indigenous lands were obtained through negotiation and contractual consent. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 declared: "The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent".

As time went on, however, the Europeans claimed dominion over all the territories of the future United States and those claims seemed to limit the sovereignty of the indigenous nations living there. As the United States grew in size and power, additional land was required for settlement and development. The U.S. government began a policy of Indian removal, which was in effect from 1816 to 1846. Through treaties and coercion the government actively, and sometimes forcibly, removed indigenous peoples to areas west of the Mississippi River. As the growing population demanded still more land and since the available land base was shrinking, removal was no longer an option. As a result, Indigenous Americans were moved onto reservations.

Reservations were an attempt bring the migratory lifestyles of indigenous peoples in line with European ideas of agrarian land ownership. Reservations were again established when Indigenous Americans agreed (often under threat of force) to forfeit land in exchange for monetary payment or other goods and services. The reservation era lasted from roughly 1865 to 1890. After that, the reservations, too, came under pressure by settlers looking for land. The General Allotment Act, proposed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1853, was designed to undermine the reservation system by "weakening tribal power to control large blocks of land and allow as much white settlement of tribal lands as possible". Indigenous Americans lost massive amounts of land during the allotment period and reservations became a checkerboard of white and Indigenous American ownership.

At the end of the treaty-making period in 1871, the United States Congress began a policy aimed at narrowing tribal and individual indigenous rights and encouraging Indigenous Americans to move from reservations. Assimilation, allotment and U.S. citizenship for Indigenous Americans became official policy goals and continued until the late 1920's.

For a short period from about 1930 to 1943, the U.S. government adopted a more tolerant attitude towards Indigenous Nations. The Indian Reorganization Act encouraged economic development and a revival of indigenous community life and culture. This benevolence was short lived, however, and was replaced with a policy of termination.

Termination was designed to produce rapid, forced assimilation. Under termination, the trust relationship between Indigenous Americans and the U.S. government would gradually decrease and eventually dissolve. Economic development on reservations was ignored and Indigenous people were encouraged to seek a life off the reservation. The BIA assisted by training indigenous people and moving them off the reservation to distant urban areas and then abandoning them

As part of termination, federal responsibilities were to be transferred to states. Several states had petitioned Congress to turn over Indigenous affairs to them because of major conflicts over water rights, hunting and fishing and taxation. In response Congress passed Public Law 280 in 1953, that transferred certain criminal and civil jurisdiction over Indian lands to state government in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin (Cooper 1990). The consent of the indigenous people affected was not necessary for these transfers and Indigenous Americans were not allowed to negotiate the terms of the changes. While the policy of termination described above was abandoned in 1958, Congress did not pass a statute requiring the indigenous peoples' consent to Public Law 280 until 1968.

In response to Public Law, the Indigenous Nations turned to the federal courts for protection. In 1978, The Supreme Court held that Public Law 280 provided for only limited substitution of state authority and that it did not confer to states "general regulatory powers over Indian lands" (Wilkinson 1987). Additionally, Public Law 280 specifically exempted state jurisdiction over taxation of indigenous trust property and any regulation of hunting, fishing, or trapping rights protected by treaty, statute, or agreement.

PBS Online ©. Adapted from an article published in In-Fisherman magazine in 1990 by John Cooper, a fish and wildlife enforcement office for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress. Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to acquire Indian territory.

Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida.

From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west. The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina. This was a period of voluntary Indian migration, however, and only a small number of Creeks, Cherokee and Choctaws actually moved to the new lands.

In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. This was because their "right of occupancy" was subordinate to the United States' "right of discovery." In response to the great threat this posed, the Creeks, Cherokee, and Chicasaw instituted policies of restricting land sales to the government. They wanted to protect what remained of their land before it was too late.

Although the five Indian nations had made earlier attempts at resistance, many of their strategies were non-violent. One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, Western education, and slave-holding. This earned the nations the designation of the "Five Civilized Tribes." They adopted this policy of assimilation in an attempt to coexist with settlers and ward off hostility. But it only made whites jealous and resentful.

Other attempts involved ceding portions of their land to the United States with a view to retaining control over at least part of their territory, or of the new territory they received in exchange. Some Indian nations simply refused to leave their land -- the Creeks and the Seminoles even waged war to protect their territory. The First Seminole War lasted from 1817 to 1818. The Seminoles were aided by fugitive slaves who had found protection among them and had been living with them for years. The presence of the fugitives enraged white planters and fueled their desire to defeat the Seminoles.

The Cherokee used legal means in their attempt to safeguard their rights. They sought protection from land-hungry white settlers, who continually harassed them by stealing their livestock, burning their towns, and sqatting on their land. In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written constitution declaring themselves to be a sovereign nation. They based this on United States policy; in former treaties, Indian nations had been declared sovereign so they would be legally capable of ceding their lands. Now the Cherokee hoped to use this status to their advantage. The state of Georgia, however, did not recognize their sovereign status, but saw them as tenants living on state land. The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.

The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court again in 1831. This time they based their appeal on an 1830 Georgia law which prohibited whites from living on Indian territory after March 31, 1831, without a license from the state. The state legislature had written this law to justify removing white missionaries who were helping the Indians resist removal. The court this time decided in favor of the Cherokee. It stated that the Cherokee had the right to self-government, and declared Georgia's extension of state law over them to be unconstitutional. The state of Georgia refused to abide by the Court decision, however, and President Jackson refused to enforce the law.

In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the "Indian Removal Act" through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west. Those wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state. This act affected not only the southeastern nations, but many others further north. The removal was supposed to be voluntary and peaceful, and it was that way for the tribes that agreed to the conditions. But the southeastern nations resisted, and Jackson forced them to leave.

Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans was paternalistic and patronizing -- he described them as children in need of guidance. and believed the removal policy was beneficial to the Indians. Most white Americans thought that the United States would never extend beyond the Mississippi. Removal would save Indian people from the depredations of whites, and would resettle them in an area where they could govern themselves in peace. But some Americans saw this as an excuse for a brutal and inhumane course of action, and protested loudly against removal.

Their protests did not save the southeastern nations from removal, however. The Choctaws were the first to sign a removal treaty, which they did in September of 1830. Some chose to stay in Mississippi under the terms of the Removal Act.. But though the War Department made some attempts to protect those who stayed, it was no match for the land-hungry whites who squatted on Choctaw territory or cheated them out of their holdings. Soon most of the remaining Choctaws, weary of mistreatment, sold their land and moved west.

For the next 28 years, the United States government struggled to force relocation of the southeastern nations. A small group of Seminoles was coerced into signing a removal treaty in 1833, but the majority of the tribe declared the treaty illegitimate and refused to leave. The resulting struggle was the Second Seminole War, which lasted from 1835 to 1842. As in the first war, fugitive slaves fought beside the Seminoles who had taken them in. Thousands of lives were lost in the war, which cost the Jackson administration approximately 40 to 60 million dollars -- ten times the amount it had allotted for Indian removal. In the end, most of the Seminoles moved to the new territory. The few who remained had to defend themselves in the Third Seminole War (1855-58), when the U.S. military attempted to drive them out. Finally, the United States paid the remaining Seminoles to move west.

The Creeks also refused to emigrate. They signed a treaty in March, 1832, which opened a large portion of their Alabama land to white settlement, but guaranteed them protected ownership of the remaining portion, which was divided among the leading families. The government did not protect them from speculators, however, who quickly cheated them out of their lands. By 1835 the destitute Creeks began stealing livestock and crops from white settlers. Some eventually committed arson and murder in retaliation for their brutal treatment. In 1836 the Secretary of War ordered the removal of the Creeks as a military necessity. By 1837, approximately 15,000 Creeks had migrated west. They had never signed a removal treaty.

The Chickasaws had seen removal as inevitable, and had not resisted. They signed a treaty in 1832 which stated that the federal government would provide them with suitable western land and would protect them until they moved. But once again, the onslaught of white settlers proved too much for the War Department, and it backed down on its promise. The Chickasaws were forced to pay the Choctaws for the right to live on part of their western allotment. They migrated there in the winter of 1837-38.

The Cherokee, on the other hand, were tricked with an illegitimate treaty. In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New Echota. The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees -- led by Chief John Ross -- signed a petition in protest. The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836. The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed. By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land. The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into stockades at bayonet point. They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes. Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.

By 1837, the Jackson administration had removed 46,000 Native American people from their land east of the Mississippi, and had secured treaties which led to the removal of a slightly larger number. Most members of the five southeastern nations had been relocated west, opening 25 million acres of land to white settlement and to slavery.

Public Land Policy

The great abundance of land in the area that eventually became the United States was the most important factor in determining national land policies. In 1790 the new nation contained 568,839,040 acres, but as a result of the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Mexican Cession (1848), and other acquisitions, including Alaska and Hawaii, the United States by 1970 extended over 2,271,343,000 acres of land and water. Of this vast area, 1,511,140,000 acres were privately owned, and 760,204,000 were held by the federal government.

The availability of so much unoccupied land required the British colonies, as well as individual proprietors who had received large grants from the king of England, to adopt liberal land policies to attract settlers. It took population to increase the value of land. Virginia and other colonies adopted the headright system, which gave a quantity of land to those who paid their own way to America or who completed an indenture. Proprietors such as William Penn also gave land to those who transported themselves and their families to Pennsylvania. Other settlers simply went to the frontier and occupied unsettled land. By the time of the Revolution there was a widespread belief among Americans that they should have easy access to land, meaning that it should be cheap or even free to honest settlers who wanted to establish family farms.

Under the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution, land not included within the boundaries of the original thirteen states became public domain, owned and administered by the national government. Congress provided for surveying and selling public lands in the Land Ordinance of 1785. This law established the rectangular system of survey, which divided land into townships six miles square, sections a mile square containing 640 acres, and quarter sections of 160 acres. The law also set the least amount of land one could buy from the government at 640 acres for a minimum price of $1.00 an acre. Land had to be offered at public auction before it could be sold directly to individuals, a provision that endured until 1841. The ordinance was more favorable to speculators than to ordinary farmers because the average settler did not have $640.00 for the minimum purchase. Speculators took advantage of the law, buying large quantities of land and reselling it in small plots to individual purchasers at higher prices.

During the 1790s, controversy arose over whether policies should be directed at using public lands mainly as a source of revenue or at helping actual settlers easily obtain land. Those who favored the principle of using land for revenue won out in the Land Act of 1796. This law raised the minimum price of government land to $2.00 an acre.

The policy of making it easier for settlers to acquire land, however, soon prevailed. In 1800

Congress passed the Harrison Land Law that reduced the amount that could be purchased directly from the federal government to 320 acres and permitted payment over four years. Even at $2.00 an acre, a settler could obtain 320 acres with a down payment of only $160.00. Four years later the minimum purchase was lowered even further to 160 acres. In 1820 Congress abolished the credit provision, but lowered the price to $1.25 an acre and cut the minimum purchase to 80 acres. Now a settler could buy a piece of public land for as little as $100.00. Congress was moving toward the democratic policy of widespread private ownership of land.

Many settlers moved ahead of government surveys and occupied parts of the public domain as squatters. When the land was surveyed and put up for sale, they would insist they had prior rights. Congress recognized this position when it passed the Pre-emption Act of 1841, which assured squatters they would have first chance to purchase 160 acres at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre. Since the quality of land varied, many western leaders proposed that poorer land be sold at reduced prices if it remained on the market for an extended time. In 1854 Congress passed the Graduation Act, which permitted land that had remained unsold for as long as thirty years to be bought for as little as 12 cents an acre.

Meanwhile, there was a growing demand, especially from westerners, for the federal government to give land to individuals who would settle on it and cultivate it. Supporters of free homesteads argued that land ownership would give people a strong economic stake in society and an interest in good government and political stability. Many Americans held the Jeffersonian view that farmers were more democratic, honest, hardworking, independent, virtuous, and patriotic than city residents. Thus to increase the number of family farmers would benefit and strengthen the nation. The homestead principle, however, had strong opponents. Eastern manufacturers feared that free land would draw away their workers, and southerners believed that western lands would be occupied by free farmers, which might ultimately reduce the power of the slave states.

Bills offering free land to actual settlers were considered regularly by Congress after 1840, and in 1848 the Free-Soil party made homesteads a national political issue. Four years later the first homestead bill passed the House of Representatives, but it failed in the Senate. Nevertheless, the idea continued to gain support. Congress passed a weakened homestead bill in 1860, but President James Buchanan vetoed it. It was not until May 10, 1862, after Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans came to power and the southern states had seceded, that Congress passed the Homestead Act. The law provided for granting 160 acres of land to qualified individuals who agreed to build a residence and live on the land for at least five years. The only cost was a small filing fee.

Other laws designed to place public lands into private ownership soon followed. In 1866 Congress passed the Southern Homestead Act to help black freedmen acquire land, but few entries were made and the law was repealed in 1876. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 granted 160 acres to qualified persons in certain western states if they planted one-fourth of the land with trees, a requirement later reduced to 10 acres. The Desert Land Act of 1877 offered 640 acres of land in parts of the West for $1.25 an acre with only 25 cents an acre down, providing the buyer promised to irrigate part of it. A year later the Timber and Stone Act permitted the purchase of 160 acres that were valuable only for timber and stone. The price was only $2.50 an acre, less than the value of one tree on some forest land disposed of in this manner.

As settlers pushed into the far western states, new problems emerged. Farmers needed irrigation water in many areas and larger acreages for dry-land farming and ranching. The Reclamation Act of 1902 provided that revenue from the sale of public lands in sixteen western states be placed in a national fund to be used for constructing dams and irrigation works. This law was designed to encourage the settlement of bona fide farmers on small farms throughout the arid West by making irrigation water available at reasonable prices. Although many problems emerged in this program, it helped establish thousands of small irrigated farms.

When settlers reached the semiarid Great Plains, it became clear that 160-acre homesteads were too small for successful farming or ranching in such an environment. In 1909 Congress passed the Enlarged Homestead Act, which authorized 320-acre homesteads in several western states. In 1916, 640-acre stock-raising homesteads were permitted in some parts of the West.

Except for the Homestead Act of 1862, none of these laws did much to help actual settlers. Large ranchers were the main beneficiaries of the Desert Land Act, and timber and mining companies profited most from the Timber and Stone Act. A great deal of graft and corruption surrounded disposal of the public domain in the late nineteenth century. The goal of assisting settlers was compromised by poorly drawn laws, inefficient administration of the land offices, and outright fraud. Nevertheless, in some western states the Homestead Act was a major factor in farm building; between 1868 and 1904 final homestead entries totaled 718,819.

Although helping farmers acquire land was a primary objective of national land policy, the federal government disposed of millions of acres for other purposes. During the nineteenth century, Congress granted land to the states for canal and road construction, for river improvements, and for public buildings. To encourage enlistments and reward soldiers for their wartime service, veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War received bounty warrants redeemable in land. The states were also awarded land to help fund schools and colleges. Many states received sections 16 and 36 in each township for the support of common schools. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 gave the states 30,000 acres of land for each of their congressmen and senators to endow agricultural and mechanical colleges. The largest grants went to railroads to encourage construction of the transcontinental lines. Altogether, between 1850 and 1871, when the railroad land grant policy ended, railroads received 175,350,000 acres from the public domain, although they later had to forfeit some 35 million acres for failure to meet construction agreements.

During the rapid occupation of the public lands in the nineteenth century, American Indians were pushed into ever smaller areas. Although the federal government recognized some Indian rights to the lands they occupied, there were strong efforts to acquire the lands by agreement, treaty, or force. Removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes" from the Southeast to Oklahoma in the 1830s illustrates that policy at its worst. During the late nineteenth century, Indians were forced onto reservations and their surplus lands opened to white settlement. In 1887 Congress passed the Dawes Act, which provided for individual allotments to Indians of most tribes.

Around 1890, national land policy, which had focused on getting public land into private hands quickly, easily, and cheaply, began to change, and by World War I it had become national policy to maintain permanent federal control over some lands. The shift was toward conservation. The Forest Reservation Act of 1891 permitted setting apart timberland from private entry. Even earlier Congress had begun to turn areas of unusual natural beauty into national parks - Yellowstone National Park had been established in 1872. President Theodore Roosevelt was an ardent conservationist, and by the end of his administration in 1909 forest reserves totaled some 194,505,000 acres. He also set aside land for parks, dam sites, and other public purposes, and the federal government reserved oil, coal, and grazing lands.

By the 1930s there was general acceptance that the national government would reserve and administer millions of acres in a permanent public domain. The Taylor Act of 1934 provided for improved administration and conservation of some 80 million acres of federally held grazing land. This law reflected a desire for more careful and efficient administration of the public domain in order to preserve valuable natural resources. Executive orders in November 1934 and February 1935 withdrew all public lands from private entry. These actions ended homesteading, although a few exceptions were subsequently approved. Most of the public lands were administered by agencies within the Departments of Interior and Agriculture.

Private individuals and companies were not denied use of resources on the public domain, but users had to operate under rules laid down by Congress and administrative agencies. By the middle of the twentieth century more ardent conservationists were demanding that some parts of the public domain be permanently set aside as wilderness areas. They argued that timber cutting, oil drilling, and other economic activities should be completely prohibited and urged preserving the designated areas in their pristine state. Responding to these demands, Congress passed the Wilderness Act of 1964, which set aside millions of acres as wilderness with very restrictive rules on their use. Many westerners bitterly criticized this law, insisting that more resource development should be permitted on federal lands. Conservationists, however, won the day. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 emphasized the principle of permanent ownership of the public domain and gave the secretary of interior greater powers to enforce restrictive policies on use of public lands. There were strong countervailing pressures in the 1980s to permit greater economic development in parts of the public domain, including Alaska. For the most part, however, these forces were unsuccessful in changing basic federal policy. In the last half of the twentieth century, administration of federal lands shifted from a custodial role to a much more positive and intensive administration of the more than 700 million acres of public lands. There was heavy emphasis on conservation with uses directed to recreation and wildlife preservation, as well as diminished economic development.

Public land policies achieved a number of goals during the nation's first two hundred years. The sale and leasing of land raised millions of dollars in revenue. Second, and much more important, was the fact that the land laws, especially the Homestead Act, encouraged private ownership of family farms. Federal land policies also promoted and supported internal improvements, education, and general economic development. In the second century of the nation's history, federal policy aimed at preserving a permanent public domain in the form of forests, grazing districts, parks, national monuments, and other lands for the general benefit of all Americans.

Bibliography: Marion Clawson, The Federal Lands Revisited (1983); Paul W. Gates, History of Public Land Law Development (1968). Author: Gilbert C. Fite

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Sponsored by the Society of American Historians. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.

Soon after the Revolution, the American government began transferring much of the continent into private ownership. More than a billion acres was given or sold to war veterans and other individuals for their service to the nation, granted to states for developing their education and transportation systems, to individuals for homesteading, and to corporations to develop water, timber, and mineral resources for the nation.

Laws passed to transfer public lands to private hands included the Land Act of 1796, the 1841 Preemption Act, the 1862 Homestead Act, the General Mineral Law of 1872, the Desert Lands and the Timber & Stone Acts in the 1870s. The laws did succeed in rapidly giving away the bulk of public lands, though not always, as we shall see, to the public. By the late 1880s, the land laws were being revised or repealed, because the end was in sight for the disposal of America's public lands.

As attorney and land reformer Sheldon Greene has described, "During its first one hundred years, the work of the United States was to take possession of its land. The colonization and territorial expansion of the United States were, simply put, a colossal land rush." Such a transfer of wealth was not accomplished without speculation, greed, and outright fraud. Throughout much of the settlement and preemption and homestead eras, corruption in land dealings was the rule, rather than the exception. The head of the U.S. General Land Office, the agency which disbursed federal lands, estimated that in 1883 fraud accounted for 40 percent of the 5-year homesteads, 90 percent of the timber claims, and 100 percent of the Preemption and commuted Homestead claims. A 1910 survey estimated that 90 percent of the preemption and homestead land in Wisconsin had actually been acquired for timber. In the 1880s, "the going rate for dummy entrymen ranged from $50 to $125; you could buy a witness for $25."

Greed and waste so characterized the era that it was dubbed "the Great Barbecue." The disposal of the public domain was inextricably tied to the Gilded Age, the Robber Barons, the Wild West, and the other great myths of the American industrial age, and to the dramas and problems that they encompass. Many of these dramas are still being played out across the country today.

It is the purpose of this paper to outline the successes and failures of the movement to revest the railroad land grants, and to show that as long as the "unintended empires" of the railroad land grants continue to exist, the political, socioeconomic, and environmental controversies will also continue, as will options for taking remedial action by revesting the lands back to the public.

Source: Taking Back Our Land - A History; George Draffan; Volume 12, Number 4, December 1998

One of the most controversial of the public lands "disposals" was the railroad land grants, a series of federal and state acts between 1850 and 1871. The ostensible purposes of the railroad land grants were to build the transcontinental railroad and telegraph systems, and to help settle the West. The railroad corporations, often federally-chartered public corporations, were in effect to be agents of federal and state public lands policies.¹⁰ The railroads, rather than the U.S. General Land Office, as was usually the case, would sell the land to settlers, and use the money raised to pay for the construction of the national transportation and communication systems. Besides these public sale provisions, there were other conditions placed upon the land grants, including constructing the railroads within a specified period, providing railroad service in perpetuity, and hauling military and postal freight at reduced rates.

The nature, magnitude, and implementation of the land grant program was debated hotly for many years. Proponents of the land grants included the arguments that the nation needed military roads for the Indian wars and the Civil War. The West was a wilderness needing to be settled and developed. People needed land, but Western land was worthless without opening by the railroads. Land grants were the only way to fund railroad construction, and the U.S. would not lose any money by granting half its land and selling the other half for twice the price. Opponents of land grants argued that the railroads should not be subsidized with public resources, and that the government would lose revenues from its public land sales program. The land grants were far in excess of what was needed to secure construction of the railroads, and would result in corporate monopolies of land and resources. Even as the debate continued, the land grants began to be legislated, with opponents managing to include what were thought to be safeguards against mismanagement or abuse.

Prior to 1862, the grants were made via the state governments; nine states granted almost 49 million acres in railroad land grants. In 1862, with the advent of the interstate transcontinental railroads, the federal government began making the grants directly to railroad corporations. Table 2 shows the largest of the land grants.

Three quarters of all railroad grant lands were eventually gathered under the four railroads: the Northern Pacific (40 million acres), Santa Fe (15 million acres), Southern Pacific (18 million acres), and Union Pacific (19 million acres). In 1995 and 1996, after more than a century of acquiring and consolidating dozens of smaller railroads, these four railroads were merged into two: the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Union Pacific (which had acquired the Southern Pacific).

The railroad land grants covered ten percent of the continental United States, yet because of the corridor and checkerboard patterns of the grants, their influence extends considerably beyond that. One historian estimates that railroad corporations controlled the settlement of a third of the country, and an even greater portion of the American West, where most of the land grants were located. Even today, the largest land owners in many Western states are still the land grant railroads and their corporate heirs. Much of the land has been sold to or spun off into new corporations, and the legacy of the nineteenth century railroad land grants is a remarkable and troubling concentration of land ownership and exploitation of natural resources which was never intended by Congress.Control of the grant lands has and continues to translate into economic and political power for the corporations which control them.

As with most of the public lands disposal, the railroad land grants were rife with pork barrel politics and fraud. Actions committed in order to evade the provisions of the land grant, or to defraud the government, the public, and/or railroad shareholders, included:

Some of these problems surfaced in the decades after the grants had been made and the railroads had been constructed; others continue after more than a century, while some are just beginning to be heard.

For a variety of reasons, ranging from lack of capital, rough terrain, bad weather, engineering problems, labor problems, repeated bankruptcy, mismanagement, corruption, and outright fraud, many of the railroads were not built as planned: in fact, forty of the seventy land grant railroads missed their construction deadlines.

For example, the Northern Pacific, having missed its deadlines repeatedly, took twenty years (1864 to 1883) to build, and was still making claims for grant lands in 1940.

In the end, after the construction failures, financial collapses, lawsuits, and forfeiture and revestment acts, only three-quarters of the total land grant acreage offered was actually transferred to the railroads. Slightly more than 131 million acres of federal land, and almost 49 million acres of state land, were eventually transferred to 61 railroads, including 25 percent of the land in Washington and Minnesota, 20 percent of Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and Montana, 14 percent of Nebraska, and 12 percent of California.

Between 1867 and 1890, about 35 million acres were forfeited by 20 railroads back to the federal government because of the railroads' failure to fulfill their land grant requirements. In 1916, two million acres were revested from the Oregon and California Railroad. In 1929, the Northern Pacific Railroad lost its claim to an additional three million acres. In 1941, about eight million acres of additional land claims were released by the railroads, which in exchange were released from their contract to give the government discounted rail rates. In the conventional wisdom, the railroad land grant era was over. But by tracing the history of forfeiture, and examining its accomplishments and failures, we will see that the land grant legacy is very much alive.

Source: Taking Back Our Land - A History; George Draffan; Volume 12, Number 4, December 1998

Northwest Ordinance – 1787

The Northwest Ordinance, approved by Congress on July 13, 1787, delineated rules for governing the Old Northwest, the area lying north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. Thomas Jefferson had written the first ordinance for the territory three years earlier, calling for a division of the region into states. Each was to have the same political powers as the original thirteen states and was to prohibit slavery after 1800. The ordinance was adopted in April 1784, but it had not been instituted because no settlers held legal title yet.

Pressure from land speculators, particularly the well-connected Ohio Company, induced Congress to issue a revised Northwest Ordinance in 1787 providing for interim federal control while local governments were being developed. The new law, primarily written by Rufus King and Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, called - as Jefferson's had - for dividing the area into several territories, but specified that each would be administered initially by a governor, a secretary, and three judges, all appointed by Congress. Whenever a district reached a population of five thousand free males, it could elect a bicameral legislature and send a nonvoting member to Congress. When its population reached sixty thousand free inhabitants (Jefferson had set the figure at twenty thousand), the district would be eligible for statehood. The ordinance guaranteed freedom of religion, trial by jury, and public support for education. It also provided that slavery was to be prohibited in the territory.

The Northwest Ordinance was one of the most important acts passed by Congress under the Articles of Confederation. It laid out the process through which a territory could move to statehood, it guaranteed that new states would be on an equal footing with the old, and it protected civil liberties in the new territories. This ordinance was also the first national legislation that set limits on the expansion of slavery.

The Harrison Land Act of 1800

Five years after Boone crossed the Cumberland gap, on May 7, 1800, the Northwest Territory was divided by a law enacted by Congress into two territoties, Ohio and Indiana. The western portion of the territory, known as Indiana Territory, included what is now Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and parts of Michigan and Minnesota. In that same year, the Harrison Land Act of 1800 opened up lands northwest of the Ohio River and west of the Muskingum to public land sale. Land was offered in sections and half sections. A half section of 320 acres was sold at $2.00 an acre plus a $3.00 survey fee for each half section purchased. Terms of the sale were: (1) one quarter of the purchase price was to be paid within 40 days of the sale; (2) one quarter was to be paid within two years; (3) one quarter was to be paid within three years; and (4) the balance was to be paid within four years of the sale. Money for the purchase was loaned at an interest rate of 6% per year.

President William Henry Harrison was also concerned about the availability of land to actual settlers rather than speculative purchasers. The sale provisions of the Northwest Ordinance had been altered by the Land Act of 1796 when the minimum price was doubled. The difficulty of getting a farm at a price they could afford to pay led many to become squatters on the public domain with no legal title. Harrison's Land Act of 1800 reduced the minimum amount that might be purchased from 640 acres to 320 and introduced a credit feature. One-fourth of the price was required at purchase and the balance in installments within four years with an additional year to make up arrears. The minimum price was unchanged. This brought land within the reach of at least a large portion of those desiring to settle in the Northwest. The Land Act of 1804 reduced the minimum amount to 160 acres. The credit provision worked badly in terms of government revenue and was eventually repealed in 1820.

This Congressional act accommodated settlers who had established themselves illegally on land ahead of government surveyors. When the surrounding land was eventually surveyed and made ready for public sale, the "squatter" had the right to appear at the local land office and purchase up to 160 acres of their illegal holdings for $1.25 per acre to pre-empt or prevent any subsequent claims, as long as the settler could show proof of a dwelling and improvements to the land. The Pre-emption Act, repealed in 1891, legalized early pioneer settlement on unsurveyed lands, and recognized squatting as a legitimate means of establishing a homestead. Many homestead files contain documents of proof related to the Pre-emption Act.

Beginning in 1862, the United States Congress enacted a series of laws that totally transformed the American West.

The Graduation Act of 1854 provided that lands remaining unsold for a long period of time might be offered at a lower price. Lands unsold for 10 years were sold for $1.00 per acre. Lands unsold for a longer period of time were sold for lower prices, on a sliding scale, the minimum being 12.5 cents per acre on lands unsold for 30 years.

Homestead Act of 1862

The Homestead Act (May 20, 1862) set in motion a program of public land grants to small farmers. Before the Civil War, the southern states had regularly voted against homestead legislation because they correctly foresaw that the law would hasten the settlement of western territory, ultimately adding to the number and political influence of the free states. This opposition to the homestead bill, as well as to other internal improvements that could hasten western settlement, exacerbated sectional conflicts. Indeed, the vision of independent yeomen establishing homesteads on the prairies was offered in the political rhetoric of the 1850s as a vivid contrast to the degradation of slave labor on southern plantations. A homestead bill passed the House in 1858 but was defeated by one vote in the Senate; the next year, a similar bill passed both houses but was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1860, the Republican platform included a plank advocating homestead legislation.

After the southern states had seceded, homestead legislation was high on the Republican agenda. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided that any adult citizen (or person intending to become a citizen) who headed a family could qualify for a grant of 160 acres of public land by paying a small registration fee and living on the land continuously for five years. If the settler was willing to pay $1.25 an acre, he could obtain the land after only six months' residence.

By the end of the Civil War, fifteen thousand homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. But the law did not provide the new beginning for urban slum dwellers that some had hoped; few such families had the resources to start farming, even on free land. The grants did give new opportunities to many impoverished farmers from the East and Midwest, but much of the land granted under the Homestead Act fell quickly into the hands of speculators. Also, over time, the growing mechanization of American agriculture led to the replacement of individual homesteads with a smaller number of much larger farms.

1. Settler paid a registration fee of around $30.00 (varied singhtly with time and place).

a. after living on the land for six months AND paying an additional $1.25 per acre;

The Morrill Act of 1862, also known as the Land Grant College Act, made it possible for the new western states to establish colleges for their citizens. Ever since colonial times, basic education had been a central tenet of American democratic thought. By the 1860s, higher education was becoming more accessible, and many politicians and educators wanted to make it possible for all young Americans to receive some sort of advanced education. Sponsored by Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont, who had been pressing for it since 1857, the act gave to every state that had remained in the Union a grant of 30,000 acres of public land for every member of its congressional delegation. Since under the Constitution every state had at least two senators and one representative, even the smallest state received 90,000 acres. The states were to sell this land and use the proceeds to establish colleges in engineering, agriculture and military science. Over seventy "land grant" colleges, as they came to be known, were established under the original Morrill Act; a second act in 1890 extended the land grant provisions to the sixteen southern states.

On July 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law what is generally referred to as the Land Grant Act. The new piece of legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont granted to each state 30,000 acres of public land for each Senator and Representative under apportionment based on the 1860 census. Proceeds from the sale of these lands were to be invested in a perpetual endowment fund which would provide support for colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts in each of the states.

First Morrill Act: July 2, 1862. AN ACT Donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

Second Morrill Act August 30, 1890. AN ACT To apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to the more complete endowment and support of the colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts established under the provisions of an act of Congress approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two.

The Timber Culture Act of 1873 was another law that encouraged homesteading and the planting of trees in the west. If a settler planted 40 acres of timber (reduced to 10 acres in 1878) and fostered their growth for 10 years, the individual was entitled to that quarter section of land. The Timber Culture Act also permitted homesteaders who occupied their land for three years, with one acre of trees under cultivation for two of those three years, to receive a patent to the land. The law was eventually repealed in 1882. Many homestead files contain documents of proof related to the Timber Culture Act.

1. Homesteaders could claim an additional 160 acres of land, under the same terms as the Homestead Act.

3. Persons with adequate amounts of money amassed large landholdings by filing fraudulent claims of having planted trees, or by planting very sparsely. Since trees wouldn't grow well in the dry West anyway, it was hard to enforce the law effectively.

This was designed to foster settlement of the arid and semi-arid regions of the west, specifically in Arizona, California, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The Act allowed anyone to purchase 640 acres of land for 25 cents per acre if the land was irrigated within three years of filing. A rancher could receive title to the land any time within the three years upon proof of compliance with the law and payment of one additional dollar per acre. The homestead files of cattle ranchers in the region west of the Missouri River contain documents of proof related to the Desert Land Act and Timber Culture Act.

1. Any buyer, not just a homesteader, could buy Federal land which had been declared "Desert Land" by making a down payment of 25 cents/acre.

3. Buyers who irrigated their land and made it arable within three years could receive clear title to it by paying another $1.00/acre.

4. Note again the potential for fraud, and the opportunity to build large land empires.

The Timber and Stone Act provided for the sale of timber and stone lands, unfit for cultivation, at $2.50 per acre. Each sale not to exceed 160 acres

1. Homesteaders could claim an additional 160 acres of land, under the same terms as the Homestead Act.

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Sponsored by the Society of American Historians. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.

Type of grant or sale	Acres	% of total
Cash sales and miscellaneous	303,500,000	27%
Homestead	287,500,000	25%
Railroads (direct to corporations)	94,400,000	8%
Railroads (via grants to states)	48,883,372	4%
Other grants to states	279,596,628	24%
Timber & Stone law sales	13,900,000	1%
Timber Culture law grants and sales	10,900,000	1%
Desert Land law sales	10,700,000	1%
Military bounty grants to veterans	161,000,000	5%
Private land claims	34,000,000	3%
Total land granted or sold	1,144,380,000	100%

Million Acres	Railroad
38.6	Northern Pacific
12.4	Atlantic & Pacific
11.4	Union Pacific
7.9	Central Pacific
7.1	Kansas Pacific
6.8	Southern Pacific
3.3	St. Paul & Pacific
2.8	Oregon & California
3.2	California & Oregon
2.9	Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
2.8	Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
2.6	Illinois Central
2.1	Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha
1.7	Winona & St. Peter
1.4	St. Louis, Iron Mt. & Southern
1.3	Florida, Atlantic & Gulf Central
1.2	Pacific Railroad of Missouri
1.2	Dubuque & Sioux City
1.2	Mobile & Ohio
1.1	Chicago & North Western
1.1	St. Paul & Sioux City
1.1	Little Rock & Ft. Smith
1.0	Cedar Rapids & Missouri River
116.2	Total of large land grants
14.2	Smaller land grants
130.4	Total Land Grant Acreage