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Updated: May 4, 2025
Then came conflicting claims as to titles and rights of preemption culminating in fighting and bloodshed. And worst of all, with this disorderly group there developed the fixed policy of eliminating the Negroes entirely. The Negro, however, was not entirely excluded. Some had already come into the territory and others in spite of the barriers set up continued to come.
Very few of the tillers of the soil had farms already marked down, bought and paid for as I had; and I sometimes talked in such a way as to show that I was a little on my high heels; but they were freer to tack, go about, and run before the wind than I; for some one was sure to stick to each of them like a bur and steer him to some definite place, where he could squat and afterward take advantage of the right of preemption, while I was forced to ferret out a particular square mile of this boundless prairie, and there settle down, no matter how far it might be from water, neighbors, timber or market; and fight out my battle just as things might happen.
Yet, as it might add value to the location, he dispatched to our headquarters at Monterey, as I have already related, the two men with a written application for a preemption to the quarter-section of land at Coloma. Marshall returned to the mill, but could not keep out of his wonderful ditch, and by some means the other men employed there learned his secret.
Our experience under the act, passed at the last session, to grant preemption rights to settlers on the public lands has as yet been too limited to enable us to pronounce with safety upon the efficacy of its provisions to carry out the wise and liberal policy of the Government in that respect. There is, however, the best reason to anticipate favorable results from its operation.
It is unnecessary to give the laws of either, but so fast was this class of land going that Congress repealed the preemption law. In other words, the amount you could obtain was cut down one half from 320 acres to 160.
Of such as did come, and was thus sold cheap, the 'prelates, barons, and other gentlemen' who sat in parliament, sagaciously provided that they should have the preemption; and it is pretty clear that the 'all and sundry' who were to come after them would have little chance of obtaining any of the cheap wine.
Some time before they had heard rumors of the coming negotiations at Washington, and those living west of the Mississippi sent a memorial to the President stating that they had settled upon the land thinking it was part of the public domain and believing that they would have the right of preëmption upon their claims.
The grievance becomes preposterous and a joke. There is more land uninhabited and open to preemption in Canada than is owned in freehold. There are more forests standing in Canada than have been cut. There are more mines than there are workmen, and only the edge of Canada's mineral lands have been explored. There are more fish uncaught than have ever been hooked.
I recommend the repeal of the preemption and timber-culture acts, and that the homestead laws be so amended as to better secure compliance with their requirements of residence, improvement, and cultivation for the period of five years from date of entry, without commutation or provision for speculative relinquishment.
They tried to get Jim to join them; offered him about anything he wanted; offered to see that the contests on his preemption and homestead be withdrawn; offered him quite a bunch of cattle, I heard; and some money." Belle's face, her staring eyes and strained expression as she listened, showed how well she knew what the news meant. "What answer did Jim give?" she asked anxiously.
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