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Show CASH SALES, 1820-1840 149 it to finance the purchase of machinery, livestock, or additional land. Daniel P. Cook, Representative from southern Illinois, wrote the Commissioner of the General Land Office on May 2, 1823, about the anxiety of the people to have the lands brought into market "as soon as practicable."10 The Indiana Legislature, in a memorial of December 17, 1828, urged that the alternate reserved sections of land along the Wabash and Lake Erie Canal be offered at "immediate sale." The same year, on December 16, a memorial of the Louisiana Legislature asked for preemption, a reduction in the price of land, credit, speedy adjustment of the private land claims, and the donation of unsalable lands to the state; it concluded with the request that the salable lands not offered be brought into market as soon as practicable.11 Finally, in 1833 the Indiana Legislature urged the "speedy survey and sale" of all the lands in the state to which the Indian title had been extinguished. Generally, it may be said that if conditions were good the people supported bringing the lands into market, but if they were unfavorable with little demand for produce, they urged postponement.12 Jackson's decision to speed up the offering of land in Alabama and Mississippi came in a period of good times, whereas Van Buren's willingness to postpone a sale was in a year when economic conditions in the West were quite unfavorable. The Hazards of Speculation Men coming into a new community to buy quantities of land for speculation were regarded as intruders who would seriously retard the growth of the area for years by withholding land from development while they 10 Letter in "Miscellaneous Letters, C," GLO Files, National Archives. 11 American State Papers, Public Lands, V, 583, 619. "Laws of Indiana, 1832-1833, p. 242. Yet the Illinois Legislature of 1838 urged putting the remaining lands under survey immediately. Laws of Illinois, 1838, p. 298. waited for its value to rise. James Flint, a traveller in the West in 1818-20, advised investors not to rely on local information concerning vacant land or prospects for rising values because the residents would . . . tell him with the greatest effrontery, that every neighbouring quarter section is already taken up. Squatters, a class of men who take possession without purchasing, are afraid of being turned out, or of having their pastures abridged by newcomers. Others, perhaps meditating an enlargement of their property, so soon as funds will permit, wish to hold the adjoining lands in reserve for themselves, and not a few are jealous of the land-dealer, who is not an actual settler, whose grounds lie waste, waiting for that advance on the value of property, which arises from an increasing population. The non-resident proprietor is injurious to a neighbourhood, in respect of his not bearing any part of the expense of making roads, while others are frequently under the necessity of making them through his lands for their own convenience. On excursions of this kind, the prudent will always be cautious of explaining their views, particularly as to the spot chosen for purchase, and without loss of time they should return to the land-office and make entry.18 Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland, writing in 1845 of conditions in Michigan where keen resentment against speculators had developed, reflected this feeling, saying that speculators were considered "public enemies." Every obstacle "in the shape of extravagant charges, erroneous information, and rude refusal was thrown in their way." Much as they disliked the "gentleman speculator, they hated with a perfect hatred him who aided by his local knowledge the immense purchases of nonresidents." Settlers who gave any aid to a landlooker were held to be guilty of treason.14 A story has been retold many times of a resident of the Wabash Valley who, seeing a group of men riding toward his claim, assumed they were land hunters and determined to scare them off. This he did by 11 James Flint, Letters from America, Reuben Gold Thwaites (ed.), "Early Western Travels" (Cleveland, Ohio, 1904), IX, 180. 14 Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland, Western Clearings (New York, 1845), pp. 2 ff and 6 ff. |