This choice of central position was not made by the first discoverers, to whom all the New World was alike open. Canada (1605), and Florida (1566), were settled before Pennsylvania (1682), or even New York (1614). In the colonial era the course of settlement already tended westward in central latitudes, but its movement in that direction was checked by Great Britain. According to the King's proclamation, in 1763, "No warrant of survey was to be granted for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic, from the west or north-west." The ground of this restriction was, that lands so far west were deemed "out of all reach of advantageous intercourse with England," and the settlers on them likely to be restive under the British yoke. 1772 Dr. Franklin, then an American agent in London, was asked by the royal council, "why will not your Middle State men migrate north or south?" His answer was: "Many principal persons in Pennsylvania once formed an association for making settlements in Nova Scotia, but as the greater part of those who went thither returned with great complaints against the severity and length of the winters, we have found it impracticable to induce removals thither, from the middle colonies. As to Florida, it is, we are persuaded, morally impossible to force the people of the middle provinces, between 87° and 40° north latitude, (while there is plenty of land in their own temperate climate) to move to scorching, unwholesome heats. The inhabitants of Montpellier, [in southern France] might as soon and easily be persuaded to remove to the northern parts of Russia, or to Senegal. In short, it is contending with nature and the experience of all ages, to compel people living in a temperate climate, and in the neighborhood of a rich, healthful and uncultivated country, to travel several hundred miles to a seaport, in order to make a voyage and settle, either in extreme hot or cold latitudes. If Yorkshire was vacant, and the more southern parts of this island were in want of land, would they suffer themselves to be driven to the north of Scotland? Would they not, in spite of all opposition, first possess themselves of that fertile country?"

  South of Illinois is too hot for wheat, north of it is too cold for corn. (See table.) Accordingly, in the latitude of Illinois - that is, within three degrees north and south of the parallel of 40°- American agriculture can be diversified more than anywhere else. Farmers there are not dependent on any one single staple, but raise crops so various that a season which is pernicious to one is profitable to some other. Theirs is the three-fold cord which is not quickly broken.

  West of the Mississippi, the main seat of settlement, both present and prospective, lies in the latitudes of Illinois - namely, in the States of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. No one of them extends more than one degree either north or south of Illinois, and population is sparse where they overrun Illinois latitudes. They are a new edition of Illinois - where 181,227 of their population in 1870 were born. During the last decade their aggregate populational gain was more than 1,400,000 - that of Nebraska exceeding four hundred per cent. A Hibernian was so astonished at this increase that he exclaimed: "The growth of Nebraska has been much greater than I expected, and I always thought it would be.

  A strong motive for migration to new States is, that in them the average value of land rapidly rises, and those farms on or near which villages spring up, soon sell at fabulous prices. While all other property in Massachusetts appreciated, between 1860 and 1870, the farms depreciated in assessed value, and that more than seven millions of dollars.* A farmer there may hence be compared to Captain Parry sailing for the North Pole, landing on an ice-field, driving a dog sledge due north twenty days, and twenty-five miles a day, only to ascertain, on taking an observation, that he was, after all, further south than when he landed, inasmuch as the ice-field was drifting south. But in a new State the farmer travels on an ice-field which drifts the same way that he wishes to go. Within forty years, the first

*Between 1850 and '70, the average valuation of land per acre rose, in Illinois from $7.98 to $35.95; in Iowa, from $6 to $25.26; and in Nebraska, from nothing to $14.58.

purchasers of Iowa lands bought thirty millions of acres for less than forty millions of dollars. Some millions of acres more were taken as homesteads at about one dime per acre. But the real estate of Iowa is assessed for taxation at four hundred millions, and this valuation is less than half its real worth. Between 1860 and 1870, Iowa rose, in populational rank, from No. 20 to No. 11. At the beginning of the decade it stood below Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Michigan, Louisiana, South Carolina and Maryland. At the end of it, it stood above them all. All the nine thus outstripped, except two, are situated wholly south or wholly north of Illinois latitudes, or of the grand American zone of dense population. Four of them were among the original thirteen States, and hence so old that their lands have ceased to rise much in value.

  Population is flowing to the westward of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska more than it is to the northward or southward of them. It is also settling those States more densely. In them it finds both the soil and the climate which have proved Illinois to occupy the most desirable zone, and in all of them there is still ample room and verge enough for settlement. The acreage of the four States, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, is about one hundred and eighty millions. But of this wide domain, larger than any European State except Russia, only twenty-one million acres, or less than one-eighth of the acreage, were under tillage in 1870.

  In Iowa, however, the soil is so invariably productive that every acre of it has already been bought from the government, so far as not given away in aid of public improvements.

  A larger proportion of Nebraska than of Iowa lies in the latitude of Illinois, namely, all of it but one-half a degree on the north, or the area of the most northern tier of counties.

  Various other considerations indicate that a progress as rapid as that of Illinois and Iowa is the manifest destiny of Nebraska.

  The real discoverer of Nebraska, then, was not Major Long, nor yet any of those wayfarers who beheld only its barrenness. Its true Columbus was he who, in spite of appearances, first detected its latent capabilities, and that without a miracle the desert could rejoice and blossom like the rose. Nevertheless the discovery of Nebraska was not at once turned to any practical account. Freighting was long more profitable than farming, as mining is to-day farther west. Not until 1867 had the Union Pacific railroad advanced so far in Nebraska that the freighter's occupation was gone. Accordingly, it is only about five years since the dawn of the agricultural era there. It is not so long since Dilke, in Greater Britain declared "the Nebraska capital to be two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest settlement."

  Yet, long before, there was a sprinkling of fur traders far west of the Missouri. Soon after the Rocky Mountain mines were opened, ranchmen began to plant themselves wherever freighters and emigrants had established a trail. Their object was to furnish entertainment and supplies to wayfarers, and most of them soon began to cultivate the soil. Their profits were large, but there lives were always in danger. One of these adventurers was George Martin, an

  This attack was simultaneous with the last formidable Indian raid in Nebraska. For two or three years more, straggling and stealing bands roamed here and there, but none of these have been seen south of the Platte since the B. & M. Railway started westward from Lincoln, two years ago.

  Martin's wounds proved not serious, and he soon returned with his wife and family to his farm. His estate, with those of his sons, all within the sound of a horn, amounts to thirteen hundred acres. Much of it yields corn and wheat, and as much is used for stock and dairy farms.

  The Indians who now remain in Nebraska are settled on reservations, and have lost their teeth and claws. A scene witnessed among one of the tribes by the writer last spring, he described thus, in writing to a friend:

  "Spending some days lately among the Otoe Indians on their Reservation on the Big Blue, in South Nebraska, I saw quite a new phase of life. The Otoes are still 'blanket' Indians -wearing breech clout and leggins - but neither coat or breeches. No whites, except government officials, are allowed to hunt, or fish, or lodge, or trade among them.

  "Their lodges, dances, games, dress and general habits, and especially their burial rites, interested me exceedingly. But I am now unable to describe my experience in regard to these matters.

  "For years the Quakers have had the Otoes in hand, and have labored to elevate them, with a zeal worthy of better success than has crowned their efforts. One anecdote told me shows plainly enough that their zeal has not always been according to knowledge.

  "Last year, news came to Philadelphia Quakers from their Quaker missionary among the Otoes, that the squaws were all destitute of

  "But the sequel of the story is not to be understood without a reference to a singular Otoe idea regarding the point of honor, which was first discovered by Major Long, on his expedition and councils among this peculiar people, in 1819. No Otoe brave can sit down between sunrise and sunset, without disgrace. He may lie, or lean, or kneel, but he must not sit, any more than a Moslem may eat between sun and sun in Ramadan. To guard against a warrior's unwittingly transgressing this anti-sitting-law, the dress of the Otoe brave is provided with a 'crow cushion' so contrived as to prick him in the seat of honor as soon as he begins to sit down. In consequence of this custom, no sooner did the squaws bring home the bonnets than the braves, regarding those articles as crow cushions, seized them as a suitable costume for themselves, though superfluous for Indian women. The next day the squaws appeared bareheaded, but each warrior was tricked out with a bonnet, not on his head, but as a panier, on quite another part of his person. Nor could any disinterested spectator fail to confess that the fashionable American bonnet, though unfit for a headcovering, when worn as a ' crow cushion' was enshrined in the niche it was ordained to fill."

  The Otoes are reported on the eve of removal to the Indian Territory. Birds of a feather flock together. Their departure will open to settlement, in Nebraska, a region of unexampled productiveness, abounding in wood, water, stone, and close to good markets.

  Accordingly, those who once shunned Nebraska as a desert are now compared to the Yankee skipper who, when in spite of a fair wind he made no progress, said he was trimming and tacking to escape a certain shoal laid down on his chart, but had been, in fact, all the while boxing the compass around an accidental fly-speck. What they feared as a lion in the. way, has turned out nothing more formidable than the shadow of their own long ears. The face of the country will be seen more plainly in the accompanying Views than in any description.

  Nebraska is so largely a Homestead State, that in tracing her rise and progress we must notice

  The purpose of the bill was to give a farm to every man who would take it - that is, occupy and cultivate it, ever so little, for five years. Usages similar in principle had existed in most of the American colonies from their infancy, and had been a secret of their rapid extension.

  The Homestead Bill is twice blessed. It blesses him who gives as well as him who takes. Though government lays no tax on homestead land till five years after it begins to be occupied, all its produce, from the first, swells the public revenue. Something of that produce is sure to be exchanged for foreign commodities which pay a duty, and a duty always falls at last on the consumer.

  Again, government land which adjoins a Homestead becomes at once more valuable. As much of it is always bought by the homesteader; as he has money to purchase or as the government will sell him, the settlers who follow are sure to plant themselves near homesteaders, from whom they can obtain supplies, advice, and, perhaps, a shelter till they can build for themselves.

  The size of homesteads was limited to one hundred and sixty acres. One reason for such a limitation is, that that number of acres forms as large a farm as a man with two boys, or one hired laborer, can properly till. It also exceeds, by a trifle, the average area of all the farms in the United States, which in 1870 was one hundred and fifty-three acres. Homesteads of a larger size would also lead to a sparseness of population unfavorable to schools, churches and other civilizing institutions.

  Within railroad limits - that is for ten to twenty miles each side of a railroad track -homesteaders, unless they have served as soldiers, can obtain only eighty acres. The reason of this restriction is the admitted fact that one acre within railroad limits is worth at least two without them. But even within those limits soldiers are granted twice as much land as other men, because they were worth more to the country in her peril than other men.

  New Year's day, 1873, completed ten years since the Homestead Law went into operation. The number of acres occupied from year to year is stated in the reports by the United States Land Commissioner. It is natural to inquire, in addition, the number of homesteaders. Yet this question is seldom, if ever, answered in the publications of the general land office. Moreover, each of those documents seems confined to the business of its own year, ignoring whatever had been done in previous years. But on adding up the homestead acreage, according to statements scattered through ten reports, it appears that within nine and a half years, ending with June 30th, 1872, the total of land to which claims had been flied by homesteaders amounted to 25,173,369 acres, which is twice as many acres as are now under tillage in England. Such a royal domain, well nigh forty thousand square miles, has the United States given away within the last decade..

  The homestead area already occupied would have sufficed for 157,333 homesteaders, if each of them had obtained a maximum farm. In fact, it was divided among a much larger number - probably among a quarter of a million. At all events, the army of farmers, each exulting in a free farm, must muster two hundred thousand strong. Forty per cent of this host have taken possession of their farms within the last two years. More and more Englishmen are learning that the best way of solving "the land question" is not to grasp at land where the struggle resembles striving to pull the hair of a bald man, but stepping over from Great Britain to Greater Britain, where farms may be had for the taking, and accordingly the new song in their mouth is;

  The progress of homesteading in Nebraska, where more homesteads have been taken than in any other State, with perhaps one exception, will be plain from the records of any of its Land Offices. The following figures compiled at the office now in Lincoln, but originally opened in Nebraska City, afford a representative specimen. The first homestead-claim filed was by William Young, to a lot described with the wonderful precision and conciseness of the United States surveyors, as on section 34, township 9, range 9 east. This record was made in 1863, on New Year's day.

  In proof of what was said of homesteads as rendering adjacent lands saleable, it is worth notice that, in this same Lincoln office, the claims filed by pre-emptors, that is purchasers, outnumber, by more than a thousand, those of homesteaders, being, on New Year's, 1873, 13,447. On the 12th of August 1872, a United States Land Office was first opened in Lowell. On the fifth day thereafter, the number or land claims already filed there amounted to 506.

  How much wiser is it for a poor man to accept a farm where it is free to each one that will take it, than to scramble for land where it can scarcely be bought. The homesteader, if poor, must rough it - perhaps live a while in a sod house - leave most of his land fallow, and work for a neighbor till be earns his tools. But he cannot become a pauper. He is likely to find, for his first crop, a home market at high prices, among settlers that follow him. His farm will, all the

     

© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 for the NEGenWeb Project by T& C Miller