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Show CASH SALES, 1840-1862 203 Angry clashes bordering on agrarian warfare were occurring in Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, and California over the rights of squatters. Furthermore, conflicting laws and court decisions had reduced a seemingly simple and straightforward land system to muddle and confusion in places. Congress had passed new land laws without considering how they might affect the rights of entrymen already established under anterior laws. The Land Office had been unable to cut through red tape; the courts had been slow in deciding disputes; disrespect for the land laws and the administrative regulations existed everywhere; and a spirit of antagonism to the Federal government prevailed. This antagonism reached a high point in the later fifties and was an important factor in the political turnover of 1860. Agrarian Unrest Over Land Questions Iowa was particularly bedeviled by a series of issues that gave rise to long newspaper controversies and bitter disputes between corporate landowners and settlers. The first of these developed over the ownership of the 119,000-acre Half-breed Tract in the extreme southeastern part of Lee County on the Mississippi River. Under the Treaty of August 4, 1824, with the Sac and Fox Indians the land was to be allotted to half-b'reeds of the tribe in 640-acre tracts. An Act of June 30, 1834, relinquished all government rights in the land to the half-breeds "with full power and authority to transfer their portions. . . ."58 Here was laid the basis of one of the angriest quarrels over land titles that this country has experienced. It lasted for a generation and left ill feelings that endured much longer. The Indian allotments in Iowa, like many of those in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, and other states, were conveyed by their half-breed owners more than once. There was a great scramble to secure the rights because they bordered on the Mississippi. Various claim- ants appeared for the same tracts. Ultimately the tracts came into the possession of powerful economic interests who found themselves opposed by bold combinations of squatters. The New York Land Company purchased a large number of the claims, St. Louis capitalists acquired the rights of 15 or 20 half-breeds, and there were other smaller holders. In 1839 judgment titles were issued on all the land and in 1841 the tract was partitioned by the Federal District Court into 101 shares each carrying ownership to 1,000 to 1,200 acres, 20 to 27 lots in Keokuk and two in Nashville, the New York Land Company being the principal holder. The settlers on the tract refused to recognize the company's title, would not buy from it nor sell their improvements and occupancy rights to it.59 Isaac Galland, a local resident who was in turn physician, lawyer, preacher, author of a brochure on Iowa, and editor and publisher of the Iowa Advocate and Half Breed Journal, became the leader of the ramparts and one of the territory's best-known men. He had once cooperated with the company but later turned against it, calling it "a clan of heartless adventurers, and their corrupt subordinates," a "graceless band of swindling scoundrels," and "renegade ruffians. . . ."60 Galland's extremist actions stirred up the people against the company which was pressing them to buy its titles. Like 58 4 Stat. 740 and 7 Stat. 229. 59 D. W. Kilbourne, Jan. 15, 1845, to Jno. C. McCoy, Letter Book of Kilbourne, and a copy of letter of Kilbourne to Chas. H. Tillson, March 15, 1853, Kilbourne MSS., Iowa State Department of History. The New York Land Company consisting of Henry Seymour, Edward C. Delavan, Samuel Marsh, and Erastus Corning, all wealthy bankers and industrialists, was allowed 41 shares by the Court Decree of 1841 but acquired others and owned most of the tract, including the city of Keokuk. Its Iowa agent was David W. Kilbourne and after 1852 Charles W. Mason. 60 Iowa Advocate and Half Breed Journal, Aug. 16, Sept. 22, 1847. David W. Kilbourne answered Galland in Strictures on Dr. I. Galland's Pamphlet Entitled "Villainy Exposed," with some account of his transactions in lands of the Sac and Fox Reservation, Etc., in Lee County (Fort Madison, Iowa, 1850). |
