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Show 150 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT running toward them shouting "Indians, the woods are full of Indians murdering and scalping . . . ." They fled, giving him time to get to the land office to file his entry, but the scare spread widely for a number of days.15 Westerners found other means of discouraging speculators. They raised the assessments on absentee-owned land, "hooked" the timber while conserving their own, pastured livestock on such land, and rejoiced to see it on the tax delinquent list and to have tax titles issued on it. The local owner of a tax title knew that if he made some improvements on an absentee-owned tract the patent title owner would either have to sell his right for a low figure or would have to pay for the improvements at the appraised value as determined by a local jury. Speculators who did nothing to develop their lands, which came to be known as "speculators' deserts," soon became aware of the deep prejudice against them and of the hazards of their trade. A letter signed R.M. to Albert Gallatin, February 22, 1811, reported that a sort of noblesse oblige was practiced at that early time by men of means looking for land in which to invest. His letter written from Lancaster, Ohio, states:16 It has been and still is customary for persons disposed to remove into a new country, to emigrate thither before the lands are offered for sale. They generally settle on the best tracts of land, and on those which be extremely valuable, without any improvement but which are rendered still more so by the labor of settlers. When the day of sales arrived, those who are wishing to purchase large quantities of land in order to profit by the enhancement of the price, generally conclude that it is unjust to bid against actual settlers. . . . The speculators were reported to make up for their generosity by inducing settlers to bid the minimum price for other land that was worth $4 and $6 an acre, but for which there 1 b Sandford C. Cox, Recollections of the Early Settlement of the Wabash Valley (LaFayette, Ind., 1860), p. 53. 16 R. M. to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, Vol: "Miscellaneous Letters A," Treasury Annex. was no competition, and then to turn it over to the speculator who provided the money. The same commentator observed a practice that was common a few years later by which lands were bid "to a handsome price and struck off to the highest bidder" and then forfeited at the end of the day. The purchaser thus learned who his competitors were, visited them before sales opened the next day, and agreed with them that they would not bid against one another. In such ways, Gallatin was informed, the government was being defrauded of considerable sums of money. The most widely used and finally institutionalized device to minimize speculation was the combination formed by prospective buyers of public lands to prevent competitive bidding at the land sales. One of the early instances of the use of intimidation to prevent competition occurred in the St. Stephen's land district of Alabama. When squatters who had made their selections of land and commenced their improvements learned that their claims would all have to go up to competitive bidding at the auction to be held in 1815, they angrily threatened "with assassination" any person who dared to bid against them for their claims. Correspondence from the St. Stephen's officers after the sale does not indicate whether the presence of a mar-shall prevented the squatters from carrying out their threats.17 Speculators' Organizations During the cotton boom of 1815-19 prices of the staple reached a high point of 33 cents and land suitable for its production was everywhere in demand, especially in the Black Belt and the Tennessee Valley of Alabama. Speculators and planters from older cotton areas seemed willing to pay, if necessary, any price to obtain promising land. At the northern Alabama sale in Huntsville in 1818, prices were bid up to fantastic levels, one tract selling for $107 an acre. It was at this sale that Andrew Jackson bought 950 acres, 17 Carter (ed.), Territorial Papers, VI, 598-99, 618. |