Poor, white, and useful: settlers in their petitions to US Congress, 1817–1841
2016; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/2201473x.2015.1096877
ISSN2201-473X
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoABSTRACTThis article examines the multilateral negotiation of aggressive white settler identity and practice in the USA during the 1820s and 1830s. Drawing upon a large sample of petitions to Congress from the records of the Senate, it shows how white US Americans from the western states and territories addressed frontier relations when calling for a more accommodating land policy. Petitions framed requests for free land and preferential purchasing rights as efforts to remake white frontier inhabitants as market producers and patriots who would direct their energies towards the common wheal. As entitled landowners, petitions claimed, settlers would help to incorporate the frontier-space into the white social and economic order of the USA. White frontier settlements would lower government expenditures on American Indian wars, because entitled whites would by their own actions and motivated by their self-interests help to displace Indigenous groups. Notes on the contributorJulius Wilm is a PhD candidate at the University of Cologne. His dissertation focuses on the nineteenth-century policy of ‘free land’ in the USA and its social dimensions and effects on Indian-white relations, in particular under the Florida Armed Occupation Act (1842) and the Oregon Territory Donation Land Claim Act (1850). Wilm completed his BA in History and International Development Studies at Roskilde University and his MA in North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin. While his present research interest centers on nineteenth-century US American social policy, racism, and expansionism, he has also published research on New England labor organizations during the Gilded Age.Notes1. Legislation depended on the approval of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Petitions were therefore always addressed to both chambers of Congress. The sample analyzed in this article is however selected from the records of the Senate only. The article draws on 786 petitions from the years between the years 1817 and 1841 from the records of the Senate committees on public lands of the 15th to 26th Congresses (See SEN15A-G11, SEN16A-G13, SEN17A-G12, SEN18A-G13, SEN19A-G15, SEN20A-G16, SEN21A-G17, SEN22A-G16.1, SEN23A-G15, SEN24A-G15, SEN25A-G18.1-2, SEN26A-G17, Record Group 46, Records of the US Senate, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington DC) as well as 115 petitions on land issues that were read and ordered to lie on the table (SEN15A-H1, SEN16A-H2, SEN17A-H2, SEN19A-H1, SEN20A-H2, SEN21A-H2, SEN22A-H2, SEN23A-H2 [‘various subjects’], SEN25A-H4 [‘preemption law’]). For the subject at hand, namely how frontier settlers negotiated their right to settle in the west, I selected petitions by settlers on issues of preemption (143 petitions) and land grants to settlers (63 petitions). Most petitions in this selection originate from western states and territories: Alabama, 18; Arkansas (state), 5; Arkansas Territory, 1; Florida Territory, 4; Illinois, 22; Indiana, 26; Louisiana, 8; Michigan (state), 12, Michigan Territory, 9; Mississippi, 12; Missouri (state), 25; Missouri Territory, 1; Ohio, 11; Wisconsin Territory, 5. A few petitions are, however, from the eastern states. Petitioners from Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia each sent one petition.2. A petition by Christian missionaries presented an exception. They requested land to be in a better position to serve God. See Leonard Jones, Henry Banta and Other ‘Subjects of Endless Life Residing in the West’ Praying for Land Grants, n.d. (endorsed January 14, 1833), SEN22A-G-16.1.3. A notable exception to this general trend was a petition of Wisconsin settlers, which stated that the settlers came from the most desirable situations in the eastern or middle states; of their own choice, bringing with them much property, because they could find here a better soil, a more genial climate, and a wider field for the exercise of enterprise and talent.Settlers of Racine County, Wisconsin Territory Praying for Preemption Rights, August 24, 1837 (endorsed December 20, 1837), SEN25A-G18.1.4. Settlers of Mississippi Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1838), SEN25A-H4.5. Settlers of Davis County, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, September 20, 1817 (endorsed January 27, 1818), SEN15A-G11.6. Settlers of Arkansas Praying for Land Grants to Settlers, n.d. (endorsed January 16, 1837), SEN24A-G15.7. Settlers of Terre Bonne, Louisiana Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 22, 1828), SEN20A-G16.8. Settlers of Davis County, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, September 20, 1817 (endorsed January 27, 1818), SEN15A-G11.9. See Philip Crawford Pearce of Indiana Praying for a Land Grant, n.d. (endorsed December 12, 1828), SEN20A-G16); 20th Congress, and Citizens of Washington, Michigan Praying for a Land Grant to Freeman Blakely, January 1, 1838 (endorsed March 13, 1838), SEN25A-G18.2.10. Settlers of Miami County, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, December 15, 1837 (endorsed January 25, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.11. Settlers of Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, December 14, 1837 (endorsed January 23, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.12. Settlers of Davis County, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, September 20, 1817 (endorsed January 27, 1818), SEN15A-G11.13. Philip Crawford Pearce of Indiana Praying for a Land Grant, n.d. (endorsed December 12, 1828), SEN20A-G16.14. Settlers of Arkansas Praying for Land Grants to Settlers, n.d. (endorsed January 16, 1837), SEN24A-G15.15. Settlers of Cherokee County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, December 24, 1836 (endorsed January 23, 1837), SEN24A-G15.16. Settlers of Monroe County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, January 1, 1822, (endorsed March 5, 1822), SEN17A-G12.17. Settlers on the Choctaw Nation Reservation in Mississippi Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 1, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.18. Settlers of Ohio Praying for Preemption Rights in Canal Reservations, December 1, 1837 (endorsed December 28, 1837), SEN25A-G18.2.19. Settlers of Mississippi Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1838), SEN25A-H4.20. Settlers of Medina County, Ohio Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 26, 1838), SEN25A-G18.2.21. See ‘An Act to Prevent Settlements Being Made on Lands Ceded to the United States, until Authorized by Law', US Statutes at Large 2 (March 3, 1807): 445–6.22. See Henry Tatter, The Preferential Treatment of the Actual Settler in the Primary Disposition of the Vacant Lands in the United States to 1841: The Development of Public Land Law in the United States (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 120.23. Settlers of Salina and its Vicinity, Mississippi Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 28, 1828), SEN20A-G16.24. Settlers of Southport, Wisconsin Territory Praying for Preemption Rights, October 26, 1837 (endorsed December 28, 1837), SEN25A-G18.2.25. Settlers of Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, December 14, 1837 (endorsed January 23, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.26. Settlers of Monroe County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, January 1, 1822 (endorsed March 5, 1822), SEN17A-G12.27. Settlers of Northern Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed July 2, 1838), SEN25A-H4.28. See Settlers of Cass County, Indiana, n.d. (endorsed October 13, 1837) and John Gun and Sarshell Fugitt Praying for Preemption Rights west of Missouri, November 25, 1836 (endorsed December 21, 1837), SEN 25A-G18.2.29. See, for example, Settlers of Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, December 14, 1837 (endorsed January 23, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.30. Settlers of Grand River Land District, Michigan Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed October 4, 1837), SEN 25A-G18.1.31. Settlers of Medina County, Ohio Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 26, 1838), SEN25A-G18.2.32. Settlers on Miami Land, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, November 15, 1840 (endorsed January 5, 1840), SEN26A-G17.33. Settlers of Southport, Wisconsin Territory, Praying for Preemption Rights, October 26, 1837 (endorsed December 28, 1837), SEN25A-G18.2.34. Settlers of McDonough County, Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed April 2, 1838), SEN 25A-G18.1.35. Settlers of Benton County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 8, 1839), SEN25A-H4.36. Settlers of Michigan Territory Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1835), SEN23A-G15.37. See Settlers on Miami Land, Indiana Praying for Preemption Rights, November 15, 1840 (endorsed January 5, 1840), SEN26A-G17.38. Settlers of Michigan Territory Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1835), SEN23A-G15.39. Settlers of Illinois Praying for Preemption Right, February 13, 1837 (endorsed February 21, 1837), SEN24A-G15.40. Settlers of Berrien County, Michigan, Praying for Preemption Rights, December 1, 1837 (endorsed January 2, 1838), SEN25A-H4.41. Settlers of Ohio Praying for Land Grants, n.d. (endorsed December 17, 1827), SEN20A-G16.42. Settlers of Arkansas Praying for Land Grants to Settlers, n.d. (endorsed January 16, 1837), SEN24A-G15.43. Daniel Harklewood of Arkansas Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed April 2, 1839), SEN 25A-G18.1.44. James W. Files of Alabama Praying for a Land Grant, January 1, 1822 (endorsed January 21, 1822), SEN17A-G12.45. On the ‘Black laws’ in effect in the western states and territories see Stephen Middleton, The Black Laws in the Old Northwest: A Documentary History (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1993).46. Tatter, The Preferential Treatment of the Actual Settler in the Primary Disposition of the Vacant Lands in the United States to 1841, 186, 207; see also Mary E. Young, ‘Congress Looks West: Liberal Ideology and Public Land Policy in the Nineteenth Century', in The Frontier in American Development: Essays in Honor of Paul Wallace Gates, ed. David M. Ellis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 74–112, 107; Allan Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 87–8.47. Settlers of Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, February 13, 1837 (endorsed February 21, 1837), SEN24A-G15.48. Ibid.49. Settlers of Galena, Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed March 22, 1834), SEN23A-G15.50. Settlers of Mississippi Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1838), SEN25A-H4.51. Settlers of Berrien County, Michigan, Praying for Preemption Rights, December 1, 1837 (endorsed January 2, 1838), SEN25A-H4.52. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005), 8, 27–8.53. See Tatter, The Preferential Treatment of the Actual Settler in the Primary Disposition of the Vacant Lands in the United States to 1841, 30, and US House of Representatives, Annals of Congress, January 26, 1792, 2. Congress, 1st sess., 337–8.54. Settlers of Benton County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 8, 1839), SEN25A-H4.55. Settlers of Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 11, 1823), SEN17A-G12.56. Settlers of Arkansas Praying for Land Grants to Settlers, n.d. (endorsed January 16, 1837), SEN24A-G15.57. Settlers of Cherokee County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, December 24, 1836 (endorsed January 23, 1837), SEN24A-G15.58. Settlers of Michigan Territory Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed February 5, 1835), SEN23A-G15.59. Settlers of Northern Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed July 2, 1838), SEN25A-H4.60. Representatives of a Swiss Colony Praying for a Land Grant West of the Mississippi River, n.d. (endorsed February 7, 1820), SEN16A-G13.61. Officers of the Hibernian Society of Baltimore, Maryland Praying for Land Grants to Irish Settlers in Illinois, January 20, 1818 (endorsed February 17, 1818), SEN15A-G11.62. Settlers of Benton County, Alabama Praying for Preemption Rights, n.d. (endorsed January 8, 1839), SEN25A-H4.63. Settlers of Sagamo Country, Illinois Praying for Preemption Rights, 1820 (endorsed January 16, 1821), SEN16A-G13.64. Zadoc Martin of Missouri Praying for the Right of Preemption, November 16, 1839 (endorsed January 10, 1840), SEN26A-G17.65. Paul W. Gates, History of Public Land Law Development: The Management of Public Lands in the United States (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 219–47.66. US Senate. A Bill to Set Apart a Belt of Land on the Western Borders of the States of Missouri and Arkansas, as Bounty Lands to be Granted to Settlers Engaged for a Term of Years in the Defence of the Frontier. S 194, 25th Cong., 2nd sess. (February 1, 1838).67. US Senate. A Bill to Provide for the Armed Occupation and Settlement of That Part of Florida which is now Overrun and Infested by Marauding Bands of Hostile Indians, S 160, 25th Cong., 3rd sess. (January 3, 1839).68. Speech by senator Benton of February 5, 1839, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 25th Congress, 3rd sess., 163.69. ‘An Act to Provide for the Armed Occupation and Settlement of the Unsettled Part of the Peninsula of East Florida', US Statutes at Large 5 (August 4, 1842): 502–4.70. Joe Knetsch, Fear and Anxiety on the Florida Frontier: Articles on the Second Seminole War (Dade City, FL: Seminole Wars Foundation Press, 2008), 242–3; Gray H. Whaley, Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee: US Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792–1859 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 177–8.
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