INTRODUCTION Everything is extraordinary in America, the social conditions of the inhabitants as well as the laws; but the soil upon which these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the rest... A century and a half ago the United States Congress created the General Land Office to administer the great landed estate of the Federal Government, a responsibility that would come to embrace more than one billion 800 million acres. In that role the Bureau has been close to the development of America. 1/ The history of the administration of the public lands is a rich and romantic story. It is a story of people; a story of unequalled agricultural productivity; a story of a rapid rise to world power; a story of a relentless, impatient, industrial revolution. More important, it is a story of people wedded to the ideal of freedom and individualism. The history of the public land is also an account of individual hardship, of heartache, of disappointment, and of failure; of homesteaders who never made it; of miners who never struck it rich; of men, women, and children who could not realize a dream of pushing westward to a new start and to become a part of the great American destiny. Since the foundation of our Republic, more than one billion 300 million acres of land have either been sold or earned by veterans, homesteaders, schools, railroads, miners, and loggers. The transfers for the most part were accomplished by the General Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management. From a humble beginning in April 1812 when there was only a handful of land offices, to present nationwide organization that has more than 3000 employees managing 477 million of the remaining 770 million acres of federally owned land, the Bureau of Land Management has been very close to the development of America. In the last 150 years there have been tremendous changes in the Bureau of Land Management activities and organization. The changes have come partly because of basic changes in the history of the United States; changes in the use of the lands; changes in the arts and sciences; and in the needs of people. This account will attempt to illustrate some of the significant periods in the growth of the General Land Office and its role in the development of America. PART I THE FORMATION OF A LAND MANAGEMENT POLICY From the time of the first permanent settlement in Jamestown in 1607, America has been a Nation of aggressive land settlers. From the early colonial policy of obtaining a royal grant or merely settling on lands and making the "would be" owners prove ownership, developed a simplified land policy within the various colonies. Maryland and Virginia were the first to establish offices for the sale of land. The system was a simple one based upon the concept of cash-and-carry, with no established price or fixed quantity of land that could be purchased. The English Crown applied only limited rules and regulations regarding the disposition of the lands. The British Colonial Office's sole concern about the sale of land centered around the western lands. As a matter of policy, based in part upon the fear that the colonies would become loose-knit if they allowed unlimited western expansion, the British Government prohibited westward movement. To the land hungry colonists, the Crown policy was restrictive and a depressant to their ambitions. The formation of the Continental Congress gave the colonist a forum from which to demand a policy of allowing westward expansion. From the increased demand for the sale of the western lands and the insatiable appetite of the early Americans to establish a new home in the west, developed many of our present land management policies. The development has been slow and ever-changing. The first significant act of the Continental Congress towards creating a land policy occurred in 1780, three years before the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War was signed. 2 The Congress resolved that the lands ceded from the various states would be settled according to laws established by them, nine of the thirteen states, thus clearly establishing Federal ownership and control of the lands. This resolution was passed before the states had actually ceded any of the lands they claimed as a result of royal grants and various charters. In fact, there was no public domain. However, the members of the Continental Congress were "alarmingly" aware of the problem of the western lands and the need for Federal ownership. During the Revolutionary War, in a move aimed at the Hessian Mercenaries, soldiers from the British Army were promised land bounties if they would desert to the American The Revolutionary Colonial Army also promised land bounties to American citizens who would enlist for the full tenure of the war. These had to be honored. 3/ In September 1780, the Congress passed a resolution calling on the States to cede their western lands to the Federal Government. The document was presented in such a way as to assure the older established States that the lands they would cede to the Government would be utilized for the common good. It is significant that this early resolution embodied an idea that had much support in the early years of the Republic that the public domain should be a source of revenue to reduce the debt of the Federal Government. 4/ - One month later anxious to fulfill the promises to the soldiers, Congress issued a second resolution, urging the States to: Consider that the war now being brought to a The States slowly bowed to a system of central control of the western lands. New York was the first to make provisions to transfer its western lands. By 1802 those of the original States, claiming title to western lands, had ceded them to the Federal Government. The land included the Northwest Territory and much of the present day South. It stretched as far west as Minnesota, and south to the east Florida "peninsula". This was the foundation of our great public domain. The States had transferred more than 259 million acres to the jurisdiction of the National Government. From this early beginning at the end of the 18th Century developed what has been called the "very strength and prosperity of America" the public lands. - The Ordinance of 1785 In 1784, the Congress adopted a motion to establish a committee to investigate and propose a method or system of disposing of the newly acquired western lands. The recommendations of the committee were incorporated into the Land Ordinance of 1784. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, it suggested that the Federal lands should be sold by the Government at a fixed price in tracts ranging from one to ten square miles. The Committee's work was adopted and its recommendations became the foundation for the much more significant Ordinance of 1785. Perhaps no one piece of land legislation, up to the time of the creation of the General Land Office in 1812, was more important than was the Ordinance of 1785. It became the basis for many of the subsequent acts regulating the public lands. It proposed to divide the Northwest territory into_townships and the townships into 640 and 320-acre half sections. 7 lands, after being surveyed, were to be offered at public auction. 8/ A board of three commissioners from the Treasury Department was proposed to manage the sale of the lands. The Office of Geographer was established to conduct the actual boundary surveys provided for in the Ordinance. The most lasting provision of the Ordinance called for a rectangular system of survey. It established townships with 36 sections of 640 acres each. The system became the basis for our land surveys. With the exception of a few minor changes, and several stormy periods in which certain groups unsuccessfully pressured Congress to abandon the system, it has endured to this day. |