OF THE EARLY FEDERAL LAND ORDINANCES BY HOWARD CROMWELL TAYLOR, PH.D. TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PUBLISHED BY Teachers College, Columbia University NEW YORK CITY 732 LB5 .08 No. 118 HARVARD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION Sept 13, 1922 Copyright, 1922 By HOWARD CROMWELL TAYLOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT Acknowledgment is due to so many that it is impossible to mention them all by name, but the writer's gratitude is none the less sincere. He is especially grateful, however, to Professors J. H. Coursault, W. W. Charters, and F. F. Stephens for their inspiration and guidance while he was a student in the University of Missouri, and also to Professors Henry Johnson and W. A. Dunning, of Columbia University. A special debt, which is gratefully acknowledged, is due Professor Paul Monroe, of Teachers College, for his sympathetic and helpful counsel and encouragement, both in the class room and in connection with this study. H. C. T. CONTENTS IV. THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 AND THE NATIONAL LAND V. THE EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORDINANCE VI. THE LAND SALES OF 1787 AND 1788 CHAPTER I THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE NORTHWEST THE purpose of this study is to discover the educational significance of the early federal land ordinances and to show how these ordinances affected subsequent legislation with reference to education and the development of the public school system in this country. The problem suggests two less comprehensive but more definite questions: (1) To what extent were these early ordinances the work of land speculators? (2) Did the advocates of these measures have any broad or clearly defined educational policy in view? In order to understand the early land ordinances it is necessary to review briefly some of the historical background with reference to the West and Northwest of the colonial period. Possession of these lands, in so far as France and England were concerned, was determined by the Seven Years' War. From that time on, the settlement and government of this territory was one of the important public questions. Some of the leading men of the time were personally interested in these western lands and projects of settlement in the frontier country. The correspondence of Washington and Crawford throws some light on the question.1 William Crawford lived in Pennsylvania, near the Virginia line beyond the mountains. For fourteen years, 1767-1781, he and Washington exchanged letters, largely concerning the land held by Washington in the West. The correspondence shows that Washington had employed Crawford to seek out quietly large bodies of good land along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. In all, Washington accumulated more than thirty-two thousand acres. In September, 1767, he wrote Crawford that he would join him, as promised, in trying to secure land beyond the Proclamation Line of 1763, because he felt sure that that measure was only a blind to quiet the Indians and would soon be repealed. This prolonged correspondence between Washington and Crawford 1 Washington-Crawford Letters. 2 Ibid. |