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Show PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS 93 Claims in the Louisiana Purchase Fortunately for the inhabitants of the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson and the Congress moved more expeditiously in establishing the machinery for the adjudication of private land claims than had been the case with the Illinois country, though the task was to take even longer to complete. Prompt action was necessary, for with the change of government, settlers and investors poured into -the new American territory looking for lands on which to settle and for investment opportunities. Where formerly uncultivated wild land had little or no demand, with cession there was a scramble to acquire it and values went up overnight to the delight of "the Spanish grandees, inhabitants who had held their land for many years . . . also that vast and increasing number of speculators and adventurers who, immediately after the acquisition of the country, flocked in to gain fortunes or political preferment," says Louis Houck. Tempted by this sudden rise in values, the last lieutenant governor under Spanish control "feathered his nest" by generous grants to himself and family which were afterwards supported by perjury and fraud. He and other well-to-do French inhabitants purchased numerous claims of those who had little understanding of the significance of the transfer of territory.16 Thomas Jefferson recognized the variety of problems the country had to deal with in taking over a vast region whose white inhabitants were aliens living under very different political institutions and land systems. After intensive study of available material and correspondence with persons familiar private land claims constituted more than a sixth of the entire area is well treated in Harry Lewis Coles, "A History of the Administration of Federal Land Policies and Land Tenure in Louisiana, 1803-1860" (Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1949), pp. 1-68, 163-202. 16 Louis Houck, History of Missouri (3 vols., Chicago, 1908), III, 34 ff. with the territory, Jefferson submitted to Congress on November 11, 1803, a digest of information concerning the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. In it was summarized the status of land claims: The lands are held in some instances by grants from the Crown, but mostly from the Colonial Government. Perhaps not one quarter part of the lands granted in Louisiana are held by complete titles; and, of the remainder, a considerable part depend upon a written permission of a commandant. Not a small proportion is held by occupancy, with a simple verbal permission of the officer last mentioned. This practice has always been countenanced by the Spanish Government, in order that poor men, when they found themselves a little at ease, might at their own con-veniency, apply for and obtain complete title. In the mean time, such imperfect rights were suffered by the Government to descend by inheritance, and even to be transferred by private contract. When requisite, they have been seized by judicial authority, and sold for the payment of debts. Until within a few years, the Governor of Upper Louisiana was authorized to make surveys of any extent. In the exercise of this discretionary power, some abuses were committed, and a few small monopolies were created. It was brought out that the registration of the claims was quite incomplete, the maps of the claims had been burned in New Orleans fires of 1788 and 1794, and the only possible way to determine the number, acreage, and boundaries of the claims was to ask the owners to exhibit their titles before officers of the government.17 Here Jefferson was saying what his successors reiterated: that the records of antecedent governments were in such confused and irregular shape as to make it impossible to determine ownership and boundaries without adjudication. Only by the submission of such documents as the claimants could provide and by parole testimony would it be possible to determine ownership and to segregate the private lands from lands owned by the government. 17 Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2d sess., 1804-05, p. 1514. |
