Omaha Claim Club - Background

Background

The first claim club in the United States was established by settlers around Burlington, Iowa, where claims were staked out soon after the American Revolutionary War. These clubs were established in direct violation of federal law, in what J. Sterling Morton described as "that independence characteristic of the commonwealth by which it became a state." Early Nebraska settlers were breaking the law as well, as they invaded Omaha tribal lands to which the United States had claim but no ownership. Morton noted that, "In both Nebraska and Iowa the squatters on lands were fully protected by the unauthorized if not positively illegal rules and promises of the claim clubs."

According to two prominent historians, the roots of the Omaha Claim Club lay in the city's founders' disagreements with "federal land laws that they considered unfair and unenforceable. Critics argued that the government's policy of selling land impeded rather than promoted progress... Almost all thought that the land policy favored wealthy speculators."

A federal decree in 1834 that defined lands west of the Missouri "Indian Territory" prevented settlement by Americans for another 20 years. In 1846 Mormon settlers received permission from the Omaha tribe to establish their Winter Quarters near the Missouri River west of Kanesville, Iowa, and in 1848 Martin Van Buren's Free Soil Party advocated the federal government give away free land in the presidential election. By 1853, Kanesville townspeople had already driven stakes in the land that would become Omaha. Logan Fontenelle, along with six other leaders of the Omaha tribe, signed over rights to Omaha lands on March 16, 1854, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed on May 30, 1854. On June 24 of that year the U.S. government announced the treaty with the Omaha tribe, and within 11 days, on July 4, Omaha City was formally founded.