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Show Chapter I Whose Public Lands? Great Britain established its sovereignty over and ownership of the region that became the Thirteen Colonies by right of discovery and by the ability of its navy to defeat France and Spain, rival claimants to territory in the New World. Only the right of occupancy was conceded to the Indians. When treaties were made with them for purchase of their land, this right of occupancy was ceded. The governors and proprietors negotiated such purchases on behalf of the Crown, and granted licenses to individuals to do so. Individuals also purchased Indian land without license and later sought confirmation of their Indian titles. In extraordinarily liberal charters or grants to proprietors, the Mother Country created 13 separate governments. The boundaries of the Colonies were ill-defined, overlapping, and crossed with Indian occupancy claims and trading rights. Each Colony had its own legislature and enjoyed control of its internal affairs; its legislation was subject to royal disallowance if not in harmony with the laws and economic interests of England. Each Colony had its own system of granting land, under which officers and men enlisted for colonial wars received bounty land, and in the southern Colonies speculators and planters acquired large grants by bringing in laborers under the headright system. During the 17th century, the Colonies enjoyed a long period of near self-government as a result of England's concentration upon her domestic troubles. The colonists thus acquired experience which made them resentful of the attempts of the Imperial Government after 1763 to establish common policies applying to all Thirteen Colonies. Doubtless some of these policies were justified, such as the instructions to the royal governors to limit the size of land grants and to require that they be "seated," that is settled, policies to establish control over the fur trade with the Indians and to prevent individuals from buying land from Indians. But it irked influential people that an absentee government in which they were not represented could exercise such powers.1 The Proclamation of 1763, though planned as a temporary measure, alarmed the Colonies for it ordered a halt to all settlement west of the Appalachians and raised questions as to the basis of the land claims merchants, planters, and traders had bought from the Indians. Notwithstanding the proclamation, rival speculating groups and rival Colonies were engaged in a constant struggle for western lands in the decade before the Revolution. The Quebec Act of 1774 tore away the region north of the Ohio from Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts whose claims were apparently good though overlapping. At the same time, the British Government sent out new instructions halting all grants by colonial governors, ending the headright system, raising quitrents, and requiring that in the future prior surveys be made and that the land be sold at public 1 Sufficiently detailed and excellent in interpretation is Curtis P. Nettels, The Roots of American Civilization: A History of American Colonial Life (New York, 1963). 1 |