From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 29 February 1804
To the Senate and the House of Representatives
To the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United States.
I communicate for the information of Congress a letter stating certain fraudulent practices for monopolising lands in Louisiana which may perhaps require legislative provisions.
Th: Jefferson
Feb. 29. 1804.
RC (DNA: RG 46, LPPM, 8th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a Senate clerk. RC (DNA: RG 233, PM, 8th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a House clerk. Recorded in SJL with notation “land-frauds in Louisiana.” Enclosure: Captain Amos Stoddard to Henry Dearborn, dated Kaskaskia, 10 Jan. 1804; Stoddard has been informed by the attorney general of the Indiana Territory that a massive land fraud is being attempted in Louisiana; some 200,000 acres, including the best mines, have been surveyed “to various Individuals” in the last few weeks; all official papers bear the signature of “M. ——,” the former Spanish lieutenant governor and current commander of a small garrison near New Orleans; Stoddard fears that he has been prevailed upon to affix his signature to a large number of blank papers, over which antedated petitions and orders of survey have been inserted; the persons attempting the fraud probably expect that their papers will be confounded with just claims and that the United States will not be able, or even attempt, to distinguish between the just and fraudulent claims (Trs in DNA: RG 46, LPPM and DNA: RG 233, PM).
Lewis Harvie presented TJ’s message and accompanying letter to the Senate and House of Representatives on 29 Feb. After reading the papers, both houses ordered them to lie for consideration (, 3:367-8; , 4:608). For earlier reports of land fraud in Louisiana, see Isaac Briggs to TJ, 8 Sep. 1803 (Vol. 41:349-51).