History
During the American Revolutionary War, Congress spent all of its money and was in debt. It promised soldiers land instead of money salaries. After the revolution, the new federal government owned all the land except the land in the 13 original colonies. The land owned by the government was called The Public Domain. The Land Act of 1785 gave land warrants to the soldiers to fulfill the promise. The Act also allowed the Treasury Department to sell land in auctions to the highest bidders. A new surveying system was created. The first auction was held in D.C., but the land sold was in Ohio. Soldiers could not afford to travel to Ohio to see the land, and then back to D.C. for the auction. Soldiers sold their warrants, often too cheaply. The government sold 640 acres at a time, minimum. Small farmers could not afford the prices. Speculators bought the warrants, purchased land, and sold the land in smaller lots to small farmers, at a huge profit.
Later, the government lowered the minimum acres, and sold land on credit, and offered some free land. The government made more money this way by copying the speculators' method. The government gained other land in time. States were then carved out of the public domain. The government has sold or given away over one billion acres of land. 5 million land patents were granted. The Bureau of Land Management grew from of the older General Land Office and now controls public domain land.
Read more about this topic: Public Domain (land)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)