CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS

CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS were frontier institutions designed to provide a quasi-legal land system in areas where no land law existed. Settlers who made their homes on land not yet surveyed, or on public land not yet offered at public auction sale, made their improvements with no certainty of continued ownership. Where squatters were fairly numerous, it was natural that they should organize to protect their common interests. Claim associations, or claim clubs, appeared early in the nineteenth century and were found in practically every part of the public land area that received settlers before 1870.

The main features of a claim association were a constitution guaranteeing mutual protection to each claimant of 160 or 320 acres who met the simple requirements for improvements, a "register" who kept a record of all claims and their transfers, and a bidder who represented the group at the public auction sale. The claim associations' registry made it possible to buy and sell claims without the government patent. And the bidder played a key role in the association's efforts to police land auctions and prevent speculators from purchasing member claims and bid-ding up the price of land.

Early state and territorial law gave legal sanction to many of the practices of the associations, including the registering and transferring of claims. Most important was the Preemption Law of 1841, which legalized squatting upon surveyed lands. It gave the settler the right to "preempt" his claim before the public sale or to purchase the land at the minimum price. The heyday of the associations was in the 1840s and 1850s in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, where practically every township had its protective organization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, George La Verne. Essays on the Public Lands: Problems, Legislation, and Administration. Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press, 1971.

Johnson, Hildegard Binder. Order Upon the Land: The U.S. Rectangular Land Survey and the Upper Mississippi Country. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

White, Richard. "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own." A New History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Paul WallaceGates/c. p.

Claim Associations