The Great American Land Bubble by A. M. Sakolski

Author:A. M. Sakolski [A. M. Sakolski]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-61016-298-2
Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers
Published: 1966-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

LOUISIANA “SPANISH GRANTS” AND THEIR “ANTEDATERS”

ON JANUARY 29, 1804, less than a year after France ceded Louisiana to the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Dr. Joseph Priestley:

“I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon, which was to burst in a tornado.”

Jefferson undoubtedly did not mean a tornado of land claimants, land jobbers and land-grant thieves, but he could, with truth, have as well made this remark. The vast, boundless region—which scarce a half century before had engendered dreams of fabulous wealth creation on the part of John Law and the other promoters of the Mississippi Bubble—had hardly been taken over by the new American republic, when hosts of schemers and “get-rich-quick” adventurers began to present their “claims” to a large part, if not practically all of the territory.

Under the terms of the treaty of cession, the United States agreed to incorporate the ceded territory into the Union as soon as possible and to accord to the inhabitants “all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens,—and in the meantime, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion they profess.”

This clause meant that all land titles, land grants and other rights given by the Spanish and French administrators must receive recognition in so far as they did not conflict with the principles of the Federal Constitution.

Just as soon as the Louisiana Purchase became known, land speculators in the region began to get exceedingly busy. They sought out and bought up all sorts of questionable titles, grants and conveyances, and when they could not find enough of them, they manufactured them. “No sooner was it known that the province of Louisiana was sold to the United States,” wrote Moses Austin, a resident of Upper Louisiana, to Albert Gallatin, “a general and fraudulent sale of lands took place. . . . Concessions for any quantity of land were duly granted, bearing date of 1799 or further back, if the claimants demanded.—The number of acres granted was governed by the sum paid. It is not necessary to say to what extent the speculation was carried on.”1

And Rufus Easton, a Connecticut Yankee, who was one of the many Easterners who settled in St. Louis within a year after Louisiana was acquired, wrote to Jefferson in a similar vein: “About the latter end of June 1803, information arrived in this country of its cession to the United States when instructions were given to the various agents of the governor . . . that grants and concessions be dated back to the year 1799, which was the general antedate . . . and that surveys thereof would be made of any tract from fifty to fifty thousand acres to any person upon payment of one hundred dollars for five hundred acres, and so great was the thirst for speculation, when money could not be obtained, horses and other property were received for payment.”2

Because the Spanish governors had been desirous of attracting settlers

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