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LAND AND ITS DISTRIBUTION

LAND AND ITS DISTRIBUTION. INTRODUCTION. A story, helping us understand how we see ourselves as a people Common metaphors So what? Does ownership form matter? Private Collective Communal. REVOLUTION TO 1860. 1783: Treaty of Paris 1803: Louisiana Purchase 1819: Florida 1845: Texas.

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LAND AND ITS DISTRIBUTION

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  1. LAND AND ITS DISTRIBUTION

  2. INTRODUCTION • A story, helping us understand how we see ourselves as a people • Common metaphors • So what? Does ownership form matter? • Private • Collective • Communal

  3. REVOLUTION TO 1860 • 1783: Treaty of Paris • 1803: Louisiana Purchase • 1819: Florida • 1845: Texas

  4. 1846: Oregon Territory • 1848: War with Mexico; California and the Southwest • 1853: Gadsden Purchase • 1867: Alaska Purchase • 1898: Hawaii

  5. LAND DISTRIBUTION POLICY • Major questions: • How to settle the new land? • How to integrate into the existing political system? • Point: • Land is wealth • Who’s to benefit?

  6. Key decision: Putting land in private hands • Sell land; or give it away? • Revenue source for federal government; use for benefit of all • Give to those thought worthy

  7. Both tried; neither fully implemented • Distributional implications, cheap vs. high-priced land • Prices eventually set by political compromise

  8. Legislation: • 1785: Land Ordinance; and how land was to be sold • 1787: Northwest Ordinance; and how new lands were to be incorporated into the political system • 1862: Homestead Act; “free” land?

  9. OTHER ISSUES • What, finally, determined land prices? Did people over- or under-pay for land? • Evidence suggests land prices tied closely to prices for agricultural output • That is, settlement primarily dictated by perceived economic opportunities for profitable farming

  10. History of land prices after 1800 one of increasing liberalization of terms • That is, price of land not the primary barrier to settlement

  11. Did land policy too-rapid an expansion, hence to overproduction, farm depression? • Note experience, prairie farming • Alternative view: different risks, prairie farming; but average agricultural returns appear to have been adequate • Doesn’t suggest there wasn’t real distress

  12. Role of speculation • Roots in requirement of cash payment, minimum acreage purchases • Was land held out of production too long, thus reducing social output?

  13. Speculators blamed for • High land prices • Capturing capital gains otherwise going to farmers • Late 19th century and farm protests: link to • Roots in land policy? • Speculative activity?

  14. SUMMARY • Land distribution a useful social mechanism • Settled continent on lawful, orderly basis, with secure property rights • But note treatment of Native Americans • Land an asset like any other asset • Changing attitudes toward land through time

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