Abstract
The treaty creating the Iowa Half Breed Tract left unclear rights of use and possession of land, Maurice Blondeau soon realized. As the first would-be settlers drifted onto the Tract, the question of apportioning land arose. But the “Indian title” specified for the Tract, the fact that it was within territory that still belonged to Native peoples and was therefore outside the control of US courts and the General Land Office, and the lack of any community institutions capable of creating consensus on land rights or enforcing such rights, left the people of the Tract in limbo. At the same time, the model of outright ownership concerned a national government where many were anxious about the disorder acceptance of squatters rights might create and others believed the justification for invoking squatters rights—property right acquired in the Lockean manner by infusing labor into an object—was fundamental.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Vanausdol, “Recollection,” p. 335. Atwater, Remarks made on a Tour to Prairie du Chien, p. 59. “Petition to clarify the half-breed land parcel,” August 25 1829, William Clark Papers, Kansas State Historical Society, Microfilm reel MS-99.
- 2.
George Graham to Lewis Cass March 23 1817, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 2, p. 136 Treaty of the Rapids of the Miami, with the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawanese, Pottawatomees, Ottawas and Chippeway (Sept. 29 1817), 7 Stat. 160 Senate Executive Journal, 15th Congress, 1st session, (Jan. 30 1818), pp. 117–118, 121; Treaty of St. Mary’s Falls (Sept. 17 1818), 7 Stat. 178, Articles 1, 2, 3; Register of Debates, 20th Congress, 1st Session, (20 February 1828), pp. 1580, 1582, 1583.
- 3.
David J. Siepp, “The concept of Law in Early Common Law,” Law and History Review, Vol. 12, 1994, pp. 33–34. Webster’s definitions are at http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/property; Francis Wayland, Elements of Political Economy, (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1837) p. 382; John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, (London: Longman’s Green and Co., 1920) p. 231 (first published 1848).
- 4.
Isaac Campbell, “Recollections of the Early Settlement of Lee County,” Annals of Iowa, First Series, Vol. 5 (1867) p. 890; History of Jo Daviess County, Illinois (Chicago: H.F. Kett, 1878), p. 235.
- 5.
Campbell, “Recollections,” p. 890.
- 6.
American State Papers Public Lands, Vol. 5, pp. 308–327. (Twenty farm lots were not confirmed at this time, for the most part on grounds they had been commons; seventeen village lots, one to heirs of trader and his Native wife, and fifteen upper village lots were also confirmed.) Brigadier Smith’s comments can be found Ibid., p. 320; Pike’s in Elliot Coues, Expeditions of Zebulon Pike (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1895) vol. 1, pp. 302–303.
- 7.
Wapello, or Cut-Nose, was chief of the community at the head of the rapids. Campbell, “Recollections,” p. 890. The Mesquakie who signed the 1824 treaty were Faimah, Kapolequa, Peamashka and Keesheswa. Wapello did sign the 1822 treaty 7 Stat. 228 (September 3 1822), the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, establishing the Lake Pepin and Nemaha Half Breed Tracts, 7 Stat. 328 (July 15 1830), the 1832 peace treaty after the Black Hawk war, in which the Sac and Mesquakie ceded the Forty Mile Strip in Iowa, clearing the way for American settlement, 7 Stat. 374 (September 21 1832) and the 1836 treaty reserving some four hundred square miles of land within the Forty Mile Strip for Sac and Mesquakie communities, including Wapello’s, 7 Stat. 516 (September 28 1836). In the series of treaties ceding land in Iowa and Illinois, and in the case of the 1832 treaty, hunting and other use rights on ceded land, the one treaty Wapello did not sign was the one establishing the Iowa Half Breed Tract.
- 8.
“Petition to Clarify the Half Breed Tract,” pp. 5, 7. Charles Menard Jr.; Chrystom Antaya, Isaac Antaya; Isidore Antaya, Louis Courville, Maria Antaya, Pier Cardinall and Strange Powers are listed in Prairie du Chien land records, while the interpreter Antoine Le Claire lived at the mouth of the Rock River, about 100 miles north of the Half Breed Tract, and John Johnson lived in Saint Louis. In addition to the four claimants Blondeau (as Maurice Blundow) signed for in addition to himself, a Victor Blondow also signed, who may have been his brother-in-law who usually went by the surname St. Amant.
- 9.
The process for validating Spanish title grants is at 2 Stat. 352, 391, 441; 3 Stat. 54; The Tesson grant is the subject of Marsh v. Brooks, 49 US 223 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1846); Other Spanish title cases are August Chouteau’s heirs v. United States 34 U.S. 147 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1835) Antoine Soulard’s heirs v United States 35 U.S. 100 (1836); Petitions to Congress to validate Spanish titles are at American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 4, pp 81, 431, 438–456, 484, 488–518; Vol. 5, pp. 594, 600, 601, 608.
- 10.
Thomas Forsyth MS, cited in Juliette Kinzie, Wau-bun, Early Day in the Northwest (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1873) (first published 1856), p. 384.
- 11.
“Petition to clarify the half-breed land parcel,” p. 6.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 5. There is a blank space where the number or proportion of people living with Native American relatives was to be inserted, but was not.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Ibid., pp. 6, 7. The language here suggests most of the petitioners were not living on the Half Breed.
- 16.
Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes, Article 1; The question of the Missouri border persisted, even after Congress in 1834 clarified that the Half Breed Tract was not part of Missouri. In 1836 Missouri’s legislature ordered a survey of the border between the Des Moines River in the east and the Missouri River in the west. The survey party leader, Joseph C. Brown, traveled more than ninety miles up the Des Moines River, and after spotting the “Sweethome Ripple,” with a fall of 10 inches over 1320 feet at mile 26 and decided that it ought to mark the eastern end of the border. A clash over a Missouri sheriff’s attempt to collect taxes near Brown’s line (supposedly involving the chopping down of three honey trees) prompted Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs to call out the state militia. The US Supreme Court eventually ruled that border was about ten miles to the south of Brown’s line. Missouri v. Iowa 49 U.S. 660 at 675, 676 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1849).
- 17.
Johnson v M’Intosh, 21 US (8 Wheat) 543 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1823), at 592, 593. For the legal concept of “Indian title,” particularly helpful are David E. Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lomawaima Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), and Eric Kades, “History and Interpretation of the Great Case of Johnson v. M’Intosh,” Law and History Review, Vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring, 2001) pp. 67–116.
- 18.
“Petition to clarify the half breed land parcel,” pp. 5–6.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 20.
Of the forty-two claimants in the petition, only nineteen submitted affidavits of their right to Half Breed Tract land when the St. Louis Superintendent of Indian Affairs William Clark began collecting claims in 1830. Twelve are reported as selling land in the 1841 case, Spalding v. Euphorsine Antaya, that divided the Tract, including nine of the fifteen who had continued to pursue claims. Twenty let their claims drop, including Maurice Blondeau, who died.
Claimant
filed claim with Clark
sold land before 1841
awarded land in 1841
Chrystom Antaya
x
x
Euphrosine Antaya
x
x
Isaac Antaya
x
x
Isidore Antaya
x
x
Maria Antaya
x
Maurice Blondeau (four Blondeau dependents)
2
4
Victor Blondeau
James Campbell
Pierre Cardinell
x
John Connolly (for child)
Louis Courvill
Russell Farnham (for four dependents)
Betsey Farrar
x(transfer to daughter)
x
Mdm. F. Garniville (Gunville)
Augustin Gunville
x
x
x
Emilie Gunville
x
Joseph Gunville
x
Laurent Gunville
x
Morice (Louis) Gunville
x
x
Marie Giard
x
x
Marguerite Hebert
x
x
Elizabeth Horronice
Elisabeth Hunt
x
x
Eliza Johnson
x
x
Mary Johnson
x
x
Rosella Johnson
x
x
Pierre Landron
x
x
Battis Laurel
Pierre Lauvier
Antoine Le Claire
Charles Menard Jr.
x
Francis Mombread
Maria Parnappe
Francis Provats
References
August Chouteau’s heirs v. United States 34 U.S. 147 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1835).
Johnson v M’Intosh, 21 US (8 Wheat) 543 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1823).
Marsh v. Brooks, 49 U.S. 223 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1846).
Antoine Soulard’s heirs v United States 35 U.S. 100 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1836).
Missouri v. Iowa 49 U.S. 660 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1849).
American State Papers, Indian Affairs.
American State Papers Public Lands.
“Petition to clarify the half-breed land parcel,” August 25 1829, William Clark Papers, Kansas State Historical Society, Microfilm reel MS-99.
Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes, August 4, 1824, 7 Statutes at Large, 229.
Campbell, Isaac, “Recollections of the Early Settlement of Lee County,” Annals of Iowa, First Series, Vol. 5 (1867) pp. 883–895.
Coues, Elliot, Expeditions of Zebulon Pike (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1895).
Kades, Eric, “History and Interpretation of the Great Case of Johnson v. M’Intosh,” Law and History Review, Vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring, 2001) pp. 67–116.
Kinzie, Juliete, Wau-bun, Early Day in the Northwest (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1873).
Siepp, David J., “The concept of Law in Early Common Law,” Law and History Review, Vol. 12, (1994) pp. 21–91.
Vanausdol, Valencourt, “Recollections of Valencourt Vanausdol,” in The History of Lee County, Iowa (Chicago: Western Historical Society, 1879) pp. 335–339.
Wilkins, David E. and Lomawaima, K. Tsianina, Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ress, D. (2019). Separation or Separate Property: The Unsettling Prospect of Ownership. In: The Half Breed Tracts in Early National America. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31467-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31467-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-31466-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-31467-5
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)