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Show CASH SALES, 1820-1840 163 presumably Indianapolis. The Palestine, Illinois, receiver reported squatters saying "it would be unsafe for any person to buy their improvements. . . ." He had advised them "to be quiet, as they themselves were intruders; and if they made any objection to the purchase of the land by others, they would be proceeded against by the United States; which, I believe, has silenced all to whom I thought it necessary to make the remark." The Chicago officers asserted that "no attempts or practices have been made in this land-office district to prevent purchases or entries" and then added that they understood settlers had pledged themselves "not to bid against each other." Making sure that they revealed nothing, and begging the questioning, they declared: "We have not heard of any combination among the settlers to resist the right of any citizen to bid for any land at the public sale not actually settled upon, or occupied by a family, nor under any other circumstances whatever." The Danville, Illinois, l officers, having denied all knowledge that might be useful to Congress, reported that there had been some excitement at the sales but that they had no difficulty in preserving order and allowing all who wished to present their bids. At Palmyra, Missouri, officers denied the existence of intimidation or collusion in their district, though some men had bid up land on successive days to keep others from getting their tracts and had then forfeited it, hoping at the conclusion of the sale to get their desired land at the $1.25 price. They had heard of extensive combinations in Iowa and Wisconsin, so systematic that each township had its own settlers' organization and its own bidder, all prepared to take swift action against any nonmember bidding on their land. Officers in both Milwaukee and Mineral Point, Wisconsin, denied personal knowledge of illegal combinations, though the Milwaukee receiver did send a newspaper copy of the proceedings of a settlers' meeting. J. W. Worthington, register of the Du-buque land office, offered the only frank state- ment of efforts at intimidation and collusion. Well before the exciting sales of 1838 he had been aware of the settlers' meetings, their resolves to prevent any outsider from bidding on their claims, and the punishment they threatened to anyone upsetting their plans. All this was widely known in the community "and it is thought all right in this country, and is called the law of necessity. Whenever a tract of land was offered, it was only necessary to say 'settlers,' and it was struck off at the minimum price per acre." He also declared that speculators to whom the settlers were favorably disposed were permitted to purchase at the minimum price land that should have sold for a much higher figure. Ver Planck Van Antwerp, the receiver at the Burlington office, was equally frank about the control over sales exercised by the organized settlers. Only one reply had come from Mississippi and Alabama, from the receiver of the Montgomery office. "No undue attempts or practices to keep down the price of the public lands, or to prevent purchases or entries thereof by force, threats, or fraud had been made." It has been the common practice in this region, "during the land sales, to form a company for the purpose of speculation; but I never heard it suggested that they did any thing to deter any person from bidding." Stories of gross fraud in the management and sale of Creek and Chickasaw allotments had earlier reached Washington but no person of standing could be found to investigate them and, as Whitcomb adds, "if they had made the attempt, no satisfactory result would have been realized. . . ."54 Striking at Speculation Possibly the knowledge that settlers' organizations had effectively ended competition, so far as improved claims on the public domain were concerned, so weakened the 64 H. Ex. Doc, 25th Cong., 3d sess., "Combinations-Public Lands," March 3, 1839, Vol. VI, No. 241 (Serial No. 349), pp. 1-12. |
