Land settlement

“ We have, then, ample justification for some kind of help to the settler in the selection of land. What Doctor Speek presents to us simply confirms what is known to every thoughtful person who has given attention to the subject of land settlement. If we want to bring it about that our settlers should understand our institutions and become good American citizens, we must abandon all ideas of laissez-faire with respect to land selection. Generally the selection is made for the settler by the land agent. ”

“ And the convicts retained at the settlement being employed in the mean time in clearing land for additional emigrants, in the proportion of ten acres, or thereabouts, for each farm of twenty to fifty acres, let such emigrants be carried out to occupy these farms as fast as they can be got ready for their reception; the emigrant settler engaging to pay a certain fixed price per acre for the whole of his land, together with the stipulated additional price for the portion cleared, on the conditions above-mentioned. ”

“ Provided further, That such lands shall be described as set forth in Schedules "A" and "B," and shall be exempted from settlement in the proclamation of the President opening the ceded lands, and that where lands so set apart are not described by legal subdivisions then the township or section or tract of land within whose limits such Indians' selections are located shall not be opened to settlement until the Indian allotments therein contained shall have been surveyed and proper evidence of title issued therefor. ”

“ Our pioneer settlers were offered homes of one hundred and sixty acres each on condition of occupancy and improvement, but the speculator could throw himself across their track by buying up large bodies of choice land to be held back from settlement and tillage for a rise in price, and thus force them further into the frontier, and on to less desirable lands. ”

“ A number of these land dealers said to the writer:
Well, it is up to the settler himself, either to succeed or to fail. If he fails, he has himself alone to blame, and he must give place to the settler who is able to succeed. There is no room for weaklings on my land or anywhere else in this world.
The results which follow in the wake of such land-settlement policies are described in the following extract from the letter of a county agent. He writes from a locality where many of the settlers are immigrants:
In some parts of this country ... ”

“ There is a short-cut mode of mortgaging land here, which will make it change hands with rapidity. However, as we have nothing to do with the old feudal reasons for making land unalienable, I don't see why we should not render it as transferable as any other property. ”

“ By the Land for Settlement Act, too, the Government has the power to compel owners of large blocks of land to sell them to the Crown; and these properties are, when acquired, sub-divided into small farms not more than 320 acres in extent. The Government is also yearly purchasing large areas of native reserves; and it will thus be seen that there is no lack of land on which persons, even with small means, may settle and make a home for themselves. ”

“ He consolidated the land laws, and added provisions which gave a decided impetus to the settlement of land in many districts and helped working men near large centres to obtain small areas on village settlements. ”

“ But above all this, the state and circumstances of our settlements render such a measure not only proper and eligible, but absolutely necessary. The English settlements, as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a stand; they are settled up to the mountains: and in the mountains there is no where together land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself, and to defend itself, and preserve a communication with the present settlements. ”

“ Any unappropriated surveyed public land may, to a limited amount, be acquired under the former laws if the party entitled to enter under them will comply with the requirements they prescribe in regard to the residence and cultivation. The actual settler's preference right of purchase is even broader, and extends to lands which were unsurveyed at the time of his settlement. ”

“ Current Objections to Land Laws. One never takes up a book or pamphlet on the subject without finding it full of loose invectives against feudal tenure, primogeniture, the law of entail and settlement, and the consequent complexity of titles and difficulties in the conveyance and free trade in land. ”

“ In the formation of such a settlement, several thousand convicts could be employed advantageously for a series of years—in the erection of public buildings, whether of immediate necessity or of permanent utility; in the clearing of land for gardens and for agricultural purposes suited to the soil and climate; in the formation of roads, tanks, piers, bridges, &:c. The supplying of a settlement of this kind with the necessaries of life, by means of convict labour employed in the cultivation of land within the settlement itself, should not, I conceive, be attempted. ”

“ Provision will be made by law, at the earliest opportunity for rendering those capitalists, who may be engaged in taking out labouring persons to this settlement, liable for the future maintenance of those persons, should they, from infirmity, of any other cause, become unable to maintain themselves there.
5. The license of occupation of land will be granted to the settler, on satisfactory proof being exhibited to the Lieutenant Governor (or other officer administering the Local Government,) of the amount of property brought into the colony. ”

“ The territory to be acquired must be fertile, well-situated and sufficiently extensive to allow the settlement of several millions. The land, as national property, must be inalienable. Its selection is, of course, of the first and highest importance, and must not be left to off-hand decision or to certain preconceived sympathies of individuals, as has, alas, happened lately. ”

“ The United States has still a large quantity of valuable land in the State open to settlement under the homestead and preemption laws. The State itself has over 2,000,000 acres of land, forfeited and granted to it in various ways; of this, the land forfeited for taxes will be given to actual settlers in tracts of 160 acres to each person, and the rest can be purchased at a low price. I cannot go into all the details, but the reader may be assured that the immigration committee make an exceedingly good showing for settlers who wish to engage in farming, fruit-raising, mining, or lumbering. ”

“ A very important reform, already referred to, had been made in our Indian treaty policy, by which lands relinquished by any tribe would henceforth fall under the operation of our land laws, instead of being sold in a body to some corporation or individual monopolist. The Southern Homestead law had dedicated to actual settlement millions of acres of the public domain in the land States of the South, while the Homestead Act of 1862 was splendidly vindicating the wisdom of its policy. ”

“ Taking the above unity as a basis, and observing the distinction which must be made between grazing land, or that which is proper for raising stock, and farming land, without the facility of irrigation, this law grants to the contractor or contractors for the establishment of a new settlement, for each hundred families which he may introduce and establish in the state, five sitios of grazing land, and five labors at least, the one-half of which shall be without the facility of irrigation ”

“ Land was the object which invited the greater number of these people to cross the mountain, for as the saying then was, "It was to be had here for taking up ;" that is, building a cabin and raising a crop of grain, however small, of any kind, entitled the occupant to four hundred acres of land, and a preemption right to one thousand acres more ad joining, to be secured by a land office warrant. This right was to take effect if there happened to be so much vacant land or any part thereof, adjoining the tract secured by the settlement right. ”

“ In order further to encourage the growth of population, and induce other settlers to come into the country, two hundred acres of land were allowed, upon condition of actual settlement, and the payment of surveying and office fees, which amounted in all to about thirty-eight dollars. ”

“ This policy has received its most signal and beneficent illustration in the recent enactment granting homesteads to actual settlers. Since the 1st day of January last the before-mentioned quantity of 1,456,514 acres of land have been taken up under its provisions. This fact and the amount of sales furnish gratifying evidence of increasing settlement upon the public lands, notwithstanding the great struggle in which the energies of the nation have been engaged, and which has required so large a withdrawal of our citizens from their accustomed pursuits. ”

“ The restriction of grants of land to those counties which may be prepared for location, will condense the inhabitants of the Settlement within proper bounds, and they will thus be enabled to render that mutual assistance and protection to each other, which, if they were more widely scattered, would be totally out of their power. ”

“ That object cannot be achieved unless such of the public lands as are suitable for settlement are conserved for the actual home-maker. Such lands should pass from the possession of the Government directly and only into the hands of the settler who lives on the land. ”

“ Certain landowners procure large areas of agricultural land in the most available location, sometimes by questionable methods, and hold it for speculative purposes. This not only withdraws the land itself from settlement, but in many cases prevents the development of an agricultural community. ”

“ So much land, though gladly accepted from Government as compensation for the toils, privations, and dangers of first settling the country, has proved any thing but a blessing to the owners, by preventing close settlement, and the efficient working of a free-school system in the farming districts. ”

“ No one believed the day of settlement ever would or ever could come. Towns must continue to grow, and in the imagination of speculators there were hundreds of cities numbering their millions of inhabitants. Land, miles and miles from the city, was laid out in blocks and squares and parks; land that will not be occupied for residences probably for hundreds of years to come, and these lots were sold, not by the acre, not by the square mile, but by so much per foot. They were sold on credit, with a partial payment down and the balance secured by a mortgage. ”

“ Under this law the head of a family, a widow, or a single person over twenty-one years of age who was a citizen or had declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, could secure 160 acres of public land by settling upon, improving and cultivating it, and by paying for and entering the same within from one to three years after settlement, the time of payment in each case depending on whether the land was offered, unoffered, or unsurveyed. ”

“ Nearly the whole population of the country are agriculturists, and live in one way or another upon the cultivation of the land. The effect of a permanent settlement will therefore create a greater feeling of security, and to encourage the outlay of capital and labour on land will be beneficial to the entire population. ”

“ In North America the settlement of the new lands has from first to last been conducted by agricultural settlers drawn from the middle or working-class of the older parts of the country or of Europe, and the land has been allotted to them in small properties, seldom exceeding one hundred and sixty acres. ”

“ Each settlement is recognized as having property rights to all adjacent lands. Within these recognized limits, its members may take up as much land as they need, provided it is not already in use, but when a field is, for any reason, abandoned it again becomes the property of the community. ”

“ Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. ”

“ It is good policy, especially in times of depression and uncertainty in other business pursuits, with a vast area of uncultivated, and hence unproductive, territory, wisely opened to homestead settlement, to encourage by every proper and legitimate means the occupation and tillage of the soil. ”

“ We demand that bonâ fide settlers on all public lands be granted free homes as provided in the National Homestead law, and that no exception be made in the case of Indian reservations when opened for settlement, and that all lands not now patented come under this demand. ”

“ It will require three months, I judge, for a man to select a good claim (a quarter section, being 160 acres) , and fence and plough a part of it and to erect thereon a cabin. There is never a want of land to preempt in a new country. The settler can always get an original claim, or buy out the claim of another very cheap, near some other settlers. The liberal policy of our government in regard to the disposal of public lands is peculiarly beneficial to the settler. ”

“ I think it is. Construing together the granting words and those respecting the lieu land selection, it is evident that one of the 'other claims or rights' excepting land from the operation of the grant was 'occupation [occupied] by homestead settlers.' The word 'occupied' and the idea conveyed by it were foreign to the homestead law at date of this act, as an essential element in the reservation of land. ”

“ It is now possible to give early relief to communities long repressed in their development by unsettled land titles and to establish the possession and right of settlers whose lands have been rendered valueless by adverse and unfounded claims. ”