Buley, R. Carlyle
The Old Northwest (2 vols. Indianapolis, 1950)
Volume 1.
104 |
THE OLD NORTHWEST |
lated on the deferred payments but a discount of 8 per cent was allowed for prepayment of any of the last three payments.
In 1804 further concession was made to popular demand: the size of tract purchasable was reduced to a quarter section (160 acres), interest was not charged until after payment was due, thus reducing cash price from $1.84 to $1.64 an acre, fees were abolished, and additional land offices were established at Detroit, Vincennes, and Kaskaskia.21 Definite concessions though these were, reduction of price and pre-emption were not yet accomplished.
Between the passage of the Harrison Land Act in 1800 and the opening of the War of 1812 no less than a dozen treaties involving important land cessions in the Northwest were made with the Indian tribes. Beginning with the Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1803 and ending with the Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1809, the process of surrender had cleared wholly or in part the Indian title to a broad crescent-shaped area of about 29,000,000 acres.
This area stretched from the west side of the Greenville Treaty line across Indiana Territory to the Vermilion River and on to the Mississippi so as to include about four-fifths of the present state of Illinois.22 It also included a large tract in Ohio north of the Greenville Treaty line between the Cuyahoga River and the Put-in-Bay meridian, and the southeastern corner of Michigan Territory. The Indians, realizing the fact that they were rapidly losing their lands, and encouraged and aided by the British, organized their last important resistance in the Northwest against the advancing army of white settlers. 23 Tecumseh's war broke prematurely in his absence, and Harrison's Tippecanoe campaign of 1811 and the campaigns of the War of 1812 broke the power of the Indians. Just as the Creeks in the South were help-
21 In acts of 1801 and 1802, Congress had exempted from interest on
deferred payments until they were due, those who purchased land from John
Cleves Symmes which lay outside his grant, thus making possible a cash price on
these lands of $1.64 per acre.
22 A large part of the area in northern Illinois was ceded in 1804 by Harrison's treaty with some of the Sac and Fox chiefs, but claims to the same land on the part of other tribes were not settled until later. See Chapter X, 57 ff.
23 It must be kept in mind that as a rule the Indian, who had no concept of private property in land, at first did not understand the significance of treaty cessions. But the effects of settlement on his hunting grounds he did understand. Furthermore, the tribes rarely possessed adequately authorized agencies for making treaties, and treaties made by representatives of a tribe were frequently repudiated by the younger and bolder elements, as well as by other tribes using the same land.
Buley, R. Carlyle
The Old Northwest (2 vols. Indianapolis, 1950)
Volume 1.
|
THE SETTLER AND THE LAND |
105 |
less after their defeat at the hands of Andrew Jackson, so were the Indians of the Northwest rendered more or less helpless before armed forces, treaty commissioners, surveyors, and settlers.
By the end of the first year under the act of 1800, 398,646 acres of land had been sold in the Northwest at a price of $834,887, of which $586,426 represented balance unpaid. Excepting 1803, sales increased annually to a maximum of 619,266 acres at a price of $1,235,953 in 1805, in which year unpaid balances amounted to more than $2,000,000. From then until the War of 1812 sales fell off irregularly.24 The war affected sales but little. Indian campaigns were nothing new to the frontier, and, unless directly on the outskirts of settlement, were not particularly detrimental to home seeking and the business of the day. In fact the halting or even driving back of the outposts to a certain extent may have stimulated land sales, for the squatter frequently found it more advantageous to buy and dig in until the way was again open. Sales for 1813 showed a decreased from the preceding year but 1814 registered a jump to 823,264 acres. Congress had watched the effects of the credit system with some misgivings. In 1806 the House Committee of Ways and Means advised against any further extension of credit, and feared that if existing regulations were in any way relaxed, "that important branch of our public resources should be altogether dried up and lost." The viewpoint of this committee was reactionary in that it was determined largely by the revenue idea rather than desire for encouragement of settlement. The same year, however, the recently created House Committee on the Public Lands, having noted the doubling in two years of the amount of balances due from purchasers, recommended the abolition of the credit system.25 It was apparent that a great many forfeitures were shortly to take place, and with the reluctance of neighbors to bid against the delinquents, or of speculators or outsiders to come in and buy them out in opposition to the hostile spirit and sometimes direct action of the community, the government would
24 1806- 473,212 acres; 1807- 284,180 acres; 1808- 195,579; 1809-
143,409; 1810- 158,844; 1811- 207,017; 1812- 391,665; 1813- 239,981; 1814-
823,264; 1815- 1,092,980; 1816- 1,131,956. American State Papers, Public
Lands (8 volumes. Washington, D. C., 1834-61), III, 420.
25 Ibid., I, 265-66.
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