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Show 138 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT This combination of circumstances set in motion a stream of settlers and speculators moving South or West, anxious to acquire the newly opened land in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and especially in Alabama, where it was presumed that most land was suitable for cotton production. Heretofore the many private land claims in Alabama inherited from the British, Spanish, and French periods and the reluctance of the Indians, notably the Creeks in central Alabama, to surrender their holdings had delayed the survey of public land areas adjacent to the private claims and consequently the opening of those lands to sale and settlement.37 However, western pressure led to the rapid extension of surveys in Alabama and the opening of 8,600,000 acres to sale by 1819. Sales in Alabama were moderate until 1816 when they reached 209,000 acres, expanded to 403,000 acres in 1817, to 1,425,436 in 1818, and to 1,259,023 in 1819, exceeding those in all other states or territories.38 Period of "Unexampled but Deceitful Prosperity" It was not so much the extraordinary size of sales in Alabama that made them unique as it was the exciting competition which collapsed the "rings" and drove prices to fantastic heights, beyond any economic justification. For example, between November 24, 1817, and April 10, 1819, John Brahan bought a total of 44,647 acres for $318,579, or an average of $7.13 an acre. He acquired 83 tracts, mostly 160 acres each, at $2.00 an acre, but high bids on other tracts raised the average price of his purchases. Twenty-eight quarter-sections were purchased for $20 to $29 an acre, two tracts for $30 an acre, and the balance for prices from $3 to $19 an acre. That Brahan was a receiver of the Madison Land Office, where the demand for land had reached the greatest pitch of excitement, and had retained $81,963 of public money with which to carry on his private land business while he was still performing his public functions, might well have led the General Land Office to take greater care in supervising its operations. In addition to default, Brahan was accused of "improper conduct, violation of official trust" and dereliction of duty and was removed from office. He was permitted to assign to trustees the thousands of acres and town lots he had bought with government funds and was even permitted to use some funds to speculate in cotton in the hope of making sufficient money to discharge his delinquency. He escaped any formal charges because of his willingness to make amends and the fact that he was vouched for by prominent leaders.39 He was not the first defaulting receiver of public money but was the largest in this early period. The number of defaulting land officers was to reach a high point in the Jackson and Van Buren administrations. Examination of the purchases at northern Alabama sales reveals that the bulk of them were made for speculation, not for settlement and improvement. Ten individuals entered 154,000 acres and 216 bought over a thousand acres each. At one public sale of former Creek land at which 81,000 acres were purchased, only 7,500 acres were taken in parcels less than 320 acres. One may wonder where the pioneer settler could fit into such a picture, except to buy from speculators at their price. Events similar to those in the Alabama land offices in 1818 were later to occur elsewhere 37 David Lightner, "Private Land Claims in Alabama," Alabama Review, XX (July 1967), 187-204. 38 Figures of the acreage offered for sale are from Mary E. Young, Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks. Indian Allotments in Mississippi and Alabama, 1830-1860 (Norman, Okla., 1861), p. 175. 39 Brahan's holdings and the prices paid for them are given in American State Papers, Public Lands, III, 552-60. Brahan was apparently operating in part for others for notes to more than $40,000 were assigned to trustees along with his 44,647 acres on which he had paid only $78,901 of the total purchase money. |