Land laws and immigration

DEFINITION: Federal legislation pertaining to the transfer of public lands to private ownership

SIGNIFICANCE: From the time the United States was established as an independent nation in 1783, the U.S. Congress passed land laws defining the procedures by which new territory can pass from public ownership to individual ownership. While agriculture was a major source of employment during the nineteenth century, the acquisition of land became a fundamental inducement to immigrants to come to the United States. Many were pushed off their lands in Europe as population rose dramatically during the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century. Owning land individually became in the eyes of many immigrants the pathway to a secure future.

When European immigrants first came to what became the United States, they brought with them a concept of land ownership fundamentally different from that held by Native American inhabitants. The concept of individual ownershipin Europe restricted by the surviving elements of feudal societystood in sharp contrast to the concepts prevailing among Indigenous tribeswhich favored communal ownership with individual rights to use land temporarily. However, striving for land over which they had full control had propelled the first European discoveries in America. Although titles to New World lands were first vested in the monarchs whose subjects “discovered” them, as governments developed into more modern forms, they found themselves constrained by shortages of funds during an era when possession and control of land was considered the primary measure of wealth. As governments sought to expand their territories, they began to use the granting of ownership to pieces of land as a means to collect revenue.

Origins

Some of the major grievances that eighteenth-century North American colonists had about British rule concerned government restrictions on their freedom to settle farmlands in the vast open spaces between the Atlantic seaboard colonies and the Mississippi River to the west. Great Britainwhich had acquired control over those western lands when it defeated France in the French and Indian War (1756-1763)tried to block settlement by individuals migrating from the colonies along the Atlantic Coast. In its Proclamation of 1763, the British government forbade new settlements in lands west of the Alleghenies reserved for use by Native Americans. Attempts by settlers from the coastal colonies to move into western areas became one of the points of contention in the American Revolution (1775-1783). After the war, the United States gained rights to the area in the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britainettling in the region then became a priority for the new nation.

Within the British North American colonieswhich had been populated overwhelmingly by immigrants from Great Britainlaws pertaining to land ownership were determined largely by the individual colonial governments. Although it was technically vested in the British monarch, land ownership was quickly devolved to those who managed the colony in America—either as a company such as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or as individualswho through wealth or connections, secured from the British monarchs grants of land in North America. These agents in turn passed over control either to large landowners or to new communitiesas was the case in Massachusetts. The latter tended to pass subordinate control to new settlements with provisions for dividing the allotted lands to early settlers.

Land Laws of the United States

One of the earliest problems faced by the new Congress of the United States was how to organize the distribution of land west of the Alleghenies. In 1784, Congress appointed a committeeof which Thomas Jefferson was the leading memberto draw up a plan. The proposal the committee produced set forth the outlines of the plan that followed in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The plan required several things:

• resolution of Native American claims to the land through treaties with local tribes
• surveying of the land into rectangular townships six miles on a side, each township to be then subdivided into 36 sections, one-mile square and comprising 640 acres
• reservation of some of the land for military bounties granted during the Revolution
• subsequent sale of the land to private individuals

This subdivision of the United States into units of thirty-six square miles was followed throughout the settlement of the west. When Congress was passing the Land Ordinance of 1785, it added some new wrinkles. It reserved one section of each township to be offered for sale for the schools of the future community; it ruled that the secretary of war could claim some of the sections for payment to veterans of the Revolutionary Warit provided that the townships would be distributed to the various states on whom would fall responsibility for selling the land by sections or as whole townships and required sales should be conducted through public auctions after at least seven (later reduced to four) of the survey lines had been run. By 1787, relatively few sales had actually occurred, so Congress authorized the sale of large aggregates to wealthy individuals prepared to take on the task of finding settlers to work the lands.

Peopling of the West

Although settlers from the seaboard colonies poured into the new Ohio Territory, formal settlement was held up by the slow progress of the survey lines and by the need to secure treaties from the Indians then resident in Ohio. Several unsuccessful clashes with tribes that resisted the flood of settlers finally led to the conclusive victory of an American force at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. In the ensuing Treaty of Greenville, the Native American tribes then resident in northwest Ohio ceded all their Ohio lands to the United States. The conditions of the Land Ordinance continued to be fulfilled in future years as more victories over the Indian tribes and cession of their rights by treaty were met.

It is not known how many immigrants were attracted to the United States by the availability of public land, since U.S. immigration records were not kept until 1821. However, there is little doubt the prospect of securing large plots of land at minimal costs drew many immigrants from Europe. Initially most came from the British Islesincluding Irelandbut as the nineteenth century wore on, many more came from continental Europe. Early sales of public lands were intended for citizens of the United States, but over the course of the nineteenth century sales opened to immigrants who began the naturalization processaffirming their intention to become American citizens. Although U.S. debts from the Revolution and the War of 1812 had been paid off with the proceeds from land sales by the 1830’s, Congress continued to seek revenue from further sales.

The large number of land laws passed by Congress indicates that the federal government continued to view selling public lands as a major source of revenue. One obstacle to sales was quickly changed: the need to bid at a single, central auction place. As early as the year 1800, Congress designated several on-the-ground sites for land auctions in Ohio—Cincinnati, Chilicothe, Marietta, and Steubenville. Afterward, auctions were held near the sites of the land being sold. Special officials were appointed to handle the sales, and rules spelled out how payments were to be made to the U.S. Treasury. Initially, land was sold for one to two dollars per acre under four-year payment plans. In later years, the prices and payment systems were regularly changed. In 1820, Congress acknowledged a great deal of land had been occupied by “squatters” and allowed them to “preempt” title to the lands they occupied by paying part of their costs in advance of the auctions.

Meanwhile, Congress often tied land grants to other government programs. For example, by the mid-nineteenth century, its policy of awarding lavish land grants to railroads became notorious. Congress granted large tracts of land to the railroads in the hope the railroads would pass the land along to settlers. In the 1862 Homestead Act, Congress gave both citizens and prospective citizens a “preemption” rightenabling them to settle on public lands and secure title to those lands after five years for payments of two dollars per acre. The Timber Act of 1873 gave settlers up to ten years to claim title to the land they occupied if they planted substantial numbers of trees on the land. Homesteaders willing to develop desert lands in the West that were unsuitable for agriculture could buy title to their lands for only twenty-five cents per acre.

By the 1890s, Congress began to recognize that public lands suitable for homesteading were becoming scarcerestricting purchasers to those who had not previously claimed land under the Pre-emption or Homestead Acts. It was still unclear to what extent the availability of public land was drawing foreign immigrants. During the early nineteenth century, the attraction of land was no doubt great, and immigration from Germany and Scandinavia undoubtedly was encouraged by the availability of cheap land.

Much of the public land was taken up by speculators with no intention of settling it themselvesthey planned to sell it to latecomers. News also got out that the costs of turning public land into useful farms could be highwhich meant that immigrants with limited capital would have difficulty developing any land they could afford to purchase. Most immigrants who came to the United States to farm probably arrived during the first half of the nineteenth centuryhowever, major settlement of Wisconsin and Minnesota did not begin until after the U.S. Civil War. Many Europeans who immigrated during the 1850s and 1860s settled in the Upper Midwest.

The goal that propelled many immigrants to come to the United States was the prospect of acquiring land for themselves. The federal land acts strengthened that resolvemaking vast tracts of land available at low cost to those prepared to settle and take up farming. Creating farms out of wild lands, however, was not an easy task, and many immigrants who tried failed. Consequently, many immigrants who left farms in Europe to farm in the United States wound up as industrial workers in cities.

2020s: Federal Land Acquisitions and Divestitures

The last overseas acquisition by the United States occurred after World War II when the Northern Mariana Islands became a U.S. territory. Prior to this, the United States gained sovereignty over the Panama Canal zonewhich it ceded back to Panama in 1979.

The U.S. federal government remained active in both acquiring and selling land. The Bureau of Land Management and the General Services Administration both sell public lands. The Federal National Mortgage Associationoften called "Fannie Mae"is a government-sponsored mortgage company. It qcquires property through actions such as a borrower defaulting on a loan. After acquiring the property, Fannie Mae can sell or auction off the property. Other government agencies performed similar actionssuch as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) acquire and sell real estate from failed banks. The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development can likewise sell farms, ranches, and homes.

Ownership of military bases are periodically returned to states and local municipalities after the Department of Defense declared them to be surplus assets. During the processknown as Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)property and buildings are ceded by the government. The BRAC process can be traumatic for the surrounding communities. Military bases are generally known to be strong sources of employment and revenue for local inhabitants. The economic impact is especially sharp if the base is situated in a small community. Oftentimes, however, local governments repurpose former military bases to great economic effect. For example, the former Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas transitioned to become Bergstrom International Airport.

Bibliography

Dunham, Harold J. “Some Crucial Years of the Land Office, 1875-1890.” In The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain, edited by Vernon Carstensen. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

Freund, Rudolf. “Military Bounty Lands and the Origins of the Public Domain.” In The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain, edited by Vernon Carstensen. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

"Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)." Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2024, www.acq.osd.mil/brac. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Rasmussen, R. Kent, ed. Agriculture in History. 3 vols. Pasadena, Salem Press, 2010.

Rasmussen, Wayne D., ed. Agriculture in the United States: A Documentary History. 4 vols. New York: Random House, 1975.

"Real Estate and Federal Lands for Sale by the Government." USA.gov, 2024, www.usa.gov/real-estate-sales. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837. London, Oxford University Press, 1968.