To James Madison from Josiah Meigs, 1 November 1815
From Josiah Meigs
General Land-Office Nov. 1. 1815.
Sir,
I have read, and with this return the Papers I had the honour to receive yesterday, “for perusal, and to be returned.”1
I have reason to believe that the Illinois and Wabash companies will resume their efforts to obtain from the United States a confirmation of their Claims.2
The following Extract from the Correspondence of Albert Gallatin, Esquire with Judge Thruston, while it is very honourable to Mr Gallatin, suggests perhaps, the idea that a prompt compliance with the apparently reasonable wishes of the broken tribe of the Potawatomies, by promising them a small annuity, and relieving their present distress with presents of useful clothing, may be of great use in repelling the Claims of those Companies, or in diminishing the value of the terms of a compromise if such should ever be made.
“New-York. 9. Sept. 1810.
Buckner Thruston Esquire:
Knowing the avidity with which the perpetual effort to plunder the United States of their Lands, is pursued, I feel it a duty to improve this opportunity of bringing into view all the important documents and such information as my situation and experience have enabled me to obtain, in order that, whenever an improper attempt is made, it may be understood and repelled by Congress. I fear, otherwise, that, after I am gone, undue advantage may be taken of the Public in a great many instances; and that the Labour of Years in defending the Public Rights, without regard to personal consequences, may be rendered altogether useless. And I have paid a sufficiently dear price for my conduct in that respect, and in other subjects of a similar nature, to make me extremely desirous, that, be the result to myself what it may, the Public, at least, should enjoy, hereafter, the full benefit of my exertions.
A. Gallatin”
Considering that there is a very respectable Military Force in the vicinity of the Land to be surveyed, I apprehend that the Surveyors may proceed in their work with no more danger than has often been encountered in similar cases. I have the honour to be very respectfully Yours,
Josiah Meigs.
RC (DNA: RG 107, LRRS, M-423:8); letterbook copy (DNA: RG 49, Division C, Misc. Letters Sent). For enclosures, see n. 1.
1. The enclosures probably included Black Partridge to JM, 1 Sept. 1815, and Ninian Edwards to William Harris Crawford, 9 Oct. 1815 ( 9:577–78 and n.). War Department Chief Clerk George Graham informed Edwards on 6 Nov. 1815 that his letter had been received, that the surveyors should continue their work as previously instructed, and that a U.S. Army guard would be provided if necessary. JM had ordered, Graham wrote, that the Potawatomi be given $2,000 in goods “as a compensation for any inconveniences they may experience, by being deprived of any part of the grounds on which they had been accustomed to hunt,” but that “their claim to the lands … must not be recognized: the Sacs and Foxes, in whom the title was, having ceded it to the United States, by the treaty of the 3d of Novemr 1804” (, Territorial Papers, Illinois, 17:226–27, 237–38).
2. At Kaskaskia in the summer of 1773, William Murray, agent for a group of merchants organized as the Illinois Company, purchased from representatives of the Illinois Indians approximately 23,000 square miles of land, part of which was located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Two years later, Murray made a second large purchase of Indian land, this time along the Wabash River for a group known as the Wabash Company. Murray and his associates in both transactions took the risk of flouting George III’s Proclamation of 1763, which forbade purchases by private individuals of Indian lands west of the Allegheny Mountains; the investors believed that the measure would be rescinded or ignored owing to its extreme unpopularity with American colonists. Events proved otherwise, and the companies spent nearly forty years vainly seeking government recognition of their claims. In the meantime, the United States acquired title to significant portions of the land in question. The Supreme Court’s 1810 decision in Fletcher v. Peck validating the claims of Yazoo shareholders (for the case, see 5:457 n. 3) breathed new life into the Illinois and Wabash companies’ efforts, but their case had no feasible route to the high court until Indiana and Illinois achieved statehood in 1816 and 1818, respectively, leading to the establishment of federal judicial districts there. In 1823 the Supreme Court heard the case as Johnson v. M’Intosh, under the direction of Yazoo mastermind Robert Goodloe Harper. Despite Harper’s efforts the court rejected the companies’ claims in accord with Chief Justice John Marshall’s “discovery doctrine,” which asserted that the arrival of Europeans in the New World had vested European rulers with title to those domains, stripping the native inhabitants of the right to sell their land to anyone but those sovereigns or their successors (Lindsay G. Robertson, Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands [Oxford, 2005], 3–27, 29–37, 41–47, 56, 75–76).