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Show LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785 61 rendered no assistance. In 1795, the Confederated Indians, cowed by American might, signed at Greenville a treaty surrendering nearly two-thirds of present Ohio and some territory in southeastern Indiana. Moreover, on November 14, 1794, John Jay had signed a treaty with Great Britain which provided for the surrender of the posts along the frontier on June 1, 1796. With the withdrawal of the British the Americans could now succeed in establishing firm control over Indian relations south of the line.3 Land Revenues Become Imperative Long before the final withdrawal of the British and the surrender of the Indians, the Ohio country had attracted the attention of the financiers of the Confederation anxious to secure revenue from its lands. Speculators who hoped to acquire rich tracts and settlers dissatisfied with the opportunities available in western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky had been looking longingly at the land. Although the desire for revenue had not been a strongly motivating force in shaping the land policies of the Colonies-except Maryland and Pennsylvania-it was anticipated from the first in the Continental Congress that revenues from the public domain, when acquired, would be used to discharge the national debt. Before anything could be done to capitalize on land in the Ohio country, the title to it had to be perfected. This involved prolonged discussions with the states, particularly Virginia and Georgia, concerning the conditions of their acts of cession. When these negotiations were successfully concluded the Congress of the Confederation could draft a plan for the management and sale of the lands.4 3Beverley W. Bond, Jr., Civilization of the Old Northwest (New York, 1934), passim; Bond, The Foundations of Ohio (Vol. 1 of History oj the State of Ohio, edited by Carl Wittke [Columbus, Ohio, 1941]), passim. 4 Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison, Wis., 1940), pp. 232 ff.; also id., The New Nation (New York, 1950), pp. 351 ff. Thomas Jefferson, one of the few leaders in state and national affairs who had not been connected with any of the land companies, was a member of a committee to develop a plan for the government of the territory and management of the lands. His committee first reported a plan for the government of the Northwest Territory; it was adopted in 1784 but never went into effect, being displaced by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Its proposal for the survey and sale of the lands north of the Ohio provided that after the Indian title had been extinguished, the lands were to be surveyed on the rectangular system with a base line crossed by meridians every 10 miles, which were to be extended north and south with due regard to the magnetic deflection. A strong advocate of the decimal system in weights and measures, Jefferson proposed to use a geographical mile of 6,086 feet which would have permitted the establishment of "hundreds" or squares 10 miles square and the division of the hundreds into 100 lots or sections of one square mile (850 acres). The base and meridian lines were to be carefully surveyed with a chain, were to be "plainly marked by chaps or marks on the trees," and were to be "exactly described on a plat, where shall be noted, at their proper distances, all water-courses, mountains, and other remarkable and permanent things, over or near which such lines shall pass." The plan provided for the purchase of land warrants with loan office certificates "reduced to their specie value by the scale of depreciation," or with "certificates of liquidated debts of the United States. ..." When the owner of the warrant had selected his land, he would tender the warrant to the surveyor of the district who, having made certain there was no previous location on the tract, was to confirm the location by a certificate. The certificate with the warrant was then to be delivered to the register who would complete the transaction by issuing a patent for the land. Thus a proud Virginian acknowledged that his state's system of indiscriminate |