How Did One Become A Property Owner In The 1700s?

[ItsTime]

Like the title says.

[dizi24]

Basically through squatting or tomahawk rights (where the basically marked their property with tomahawk). Private property was a bit of a mess iin America until really about the 1850s. The problem was the state had one idea of who owned property, but the rest of society believed that there were a couple people who had rights to that land too. So it ended up that there would often be 2-3 with the same rights on one piece of land. It only got worse as well when we started moving west.

Thus, the Homestead Act. In many ways, it was an attempt to come to a common agreement on who the government saw as landowners and who the rest of society saw as landowners. The government realized there would just be squatters everywhere in the Mid-West, so they agreed they would just give people the land as long as they attempted to improve it or work on it.

To answer your question, there wasn't really a great system of property rights back then. There were attempts, but the problem is people just essentially try to take the land, while the government attempts to resist this by refusing to acknlowedge it so they can use the land as they wish. If you've lived in America your entire life, it seems strange to live in a land without property rights. Like come to Egypt, most of the land here is just built on, and there's no rights to the land. The government can't do anything about it, so they just keep building on it, and there's very few people who actually own the land they build on.

[cbc58]

I grew up in a house that was built in 1760. We had the original deed and it says that the land was bought from someone... in CT.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Basically through squatting or tomahawk rights (where the basically marked their property with tomahawk). Private property was a bit of a mess iin America until really about the 1850s. The problem was the state had one idea of who owned property, but the rest of society believed that there were a couple people who had rights to that land too. So it ended up that there would often be 2-3 with the same rights on one piece of land. It only got worse as well when we started moving west.

Thus, the Homestead Act. In many ways, it was an attempt to come to a common agreement on who the government saw as landowners and who the rest of society saw as landowners. The government realized there would just be squatters everywhere in the Mid-West, so they agreed they would just give people the land as long as they attempted to improve it or work on it.

To answer your question, there wasn't really a great system of property rights back then. There were attempts, but the problem is people just essentially try to take the land, while the government attempts to resist this by refusing to acknlowedge it so they can use the land as they wish. If you've lived in America your entire life, it seems strange to live in a land without property rights. Like come to Egypt, most of the land here is just built on, and there's no rights to the land. The government can't do anything about it, so they just keep building on it, and there's very few people who actually own the land they build on.

"a. Land Clubs:
For the pioneer settlers who often moved into the public domain before it
was surveyed or open for sale by the federal government, definition and
enforcement of property rights in the land they claimed was always a
problem. "These marginal or frontier settlers (squatters as they were called)
were beyond the pale of constitutional government. No statute of Congress
protected them in their rights to the claims they had chosen and the improve-
ments they had made. In law they were trespassers; in fact they were honest
farmers." The result was the formation of "extra-legal" organizations for
protection and justice. These land clubs or claims associations, as theextra-
legal associations came to he known, were found throughout the Middle
West with the Iowa variety receiving the most attention. Benjamin F.
Shambaugh suggests that we view these clubs "as an illustrative type of
frontier extra-legal, extra-constitutional political organization in which are
reflected certain principles of American life and character."' To Frederick
Jackson Turner these squatters' associations provided an excellent example
of the "power of the newly arrived pioneers to join together for a common
end without the intervention of governmental institutions. . . ."2'
Each claims association adopted its own constitution and by-laws, elected
officers for the operation of the organization, established rules for adjudicat-
ing disputes, and established the procedure for the registration and protec-
tion of claims. The constitution of the Claim Association of Johnson
County, Iowa offers one of the few records of club operation. In addition to
president, vice president, and clerk and record, that constitution provided
for the election of seven judges, any five of whom could compose a court to
settle disputes, and for the election of two marshals charged with enforcing
rules of the association. The constitution specified the procedure whereby
property rights in land would be defined as well as the procedure for
arbitrating claims disputes. User charges were utilized for defraying arbitra-
tion expenses.

In such case of the place and time of holding such court and summons all
witnesses that either of the parties may require the court made previous
to their proceeding to investigate any case require the plaintiff and
defendant to deposit a sufficient sum of money in their hands to defray
the expenses of said suit or the costs of said suit, and should either party
refuse to deposit such sum of money the court may render judgment
against such peison refusing to do. . . .

As a sanction against those who would not follow the rules of the
association, violence was an option, but the following resolution suggests
that less violent means were also used.

Resolved, that more effectually to sustain settlers in their just claims
according to the custom of the neighborhood and to prevent difficulty
and discord in society that we mutually pledge our honours to observe
the following resolutions rigidly. That we will not associate nor counte-
nance those who do not respect the claims of settlers and further that we
will neither neighbor with them . . . Trade barter deal with them in any
way whatever. . . .

That the constitutions, by-laws, and resolutions of all claims clubs were
not alike suggests that preferences among the squatters did vary and that
there were alternative forms of protection and justice available. The most
common justification for the clubs was stated as follows:

"Whereas it has become a custom in the western states, as soon as the Indian title to the public lands has been extinguished by the General Government for the citizens of the United States to settle upon and improve said lands, and heretofore the improvement and claim of the settler to the extent of 320 acres, has been respected by both the citizens and laws of Iowa.. . ."

Other justification "emphasized the need of protection .against 'reckless claim
jumpers and invidious wolves in human form,' or the need 'for better
security against foreign as well as domestic aggression."' Some associations
were formed specifically for the purpose of opposing "speculators" who were
attempting to obtain title to the land. The constitutions of these clubs as
evidenced by the Johnson County document specifically regulated the
amount of improvements which had to be made on the claim. Other associa-
tions, however, encouraged speculation by making no such requirements.
These voluntary, extra-legal associations provided protection and justice
without apparent violence and developed rules consistent with the prefer-
ences, goals, and endowments of the participants."

http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf

This is a must read for everyone to the fallaciousness that the State is needed for private property rights. In fact, one could argue that private property rights were upheld more justly and more rigidly without violation in the West in the 1800s than in any other period or region. Certainly today, we do not have anything near private property for sure.

[Mike Mitrosky]

be friends with the king

[ItsTime]

Great post thanks