FLORIDA TERRITORY 97

FLORIDA TERRITORY 97

[Enclosure: D5]

Memorial to Congress by Citizens of Jackson County

[November, 1824]

A Memorial addressed to Congress by the citizens of Jackson County,

West Florida.—

Congress having manifested a disposition to remunerate the early settlers in this territory for the toils dangers & privations which they, in common with all who leave. the abodes of civilisation to explore & organise new countries, have experienced, Your Memorialists are emboldened to solicit an extension of the fostering care of Government in their behalf:—They would respectfully state that in the early part of the year 1822 immediately after the expiration of the time appointed by Congress for making donations of land to the first settlers, a great part of your Memorialists removed from the adjacent states to this territory, & that upon them & others who have emigrated subsequently has chiefly devolved the burden of making roads, the trouble of finding markets, the danger of testing climate, the labour of clearing water courses, & in short the arduous task of organising the country. Under these circumstances your Memorialists, having a considerable stake in this territory, feel alarmed by the consideration of what has transpired in the state of Alabama, & are apprehensive that the fruit of their labours will be reaped by monopolists and speculators; they therefore pray that Congress will afford them the same protection, which on former occasions has been granted to citizens under similar circumstances, against those individuals who possessing an almost unlimited command of funds, prohibit fair competition, take advantage of the improvements of individuals and defraud the general government. Of such abuses your Memorialists would cite an illustration furnished at the sale of the public land in Alabama, on which occasion, the speculators & money holders actually required the payment of considerable sums of money from citizens whose improved claims bore an honorable testimony to their industry, compelling them to purchase their right of coming into the market, securing their own interests at the expense of the people and treasury.—

The immunity which your Memorialists would most respectfully & earnestly solicit is a preemption in favor of their claims & improvements, that. they may be shielded from oppression & encouraged to proceed with the cultivation of their claims & the improvement of the country generally.

That Congress may not entertain the opinion that your Memorialists themselves have formed the design of monopolising valuable tracts of lands they would state that no individual has made a claim of more than one thousand acres of land, & that few claims exceed six hundred & forty acres. Your Memorialists deem it proper to observe that the

98 TERRITORIAL PAPERS

permission which Congress granted to citizens, to occupy & cultivate the soil for some years prior to the sale of the lands will not prove beneficial to them unless Congress should be pleased to accede to their present petition; the lands in this section of the country require severe labour & cultivation for several years before they come to perfection & yield a produce that will more than clear the expenses of the planter, differing widely in this respect from the neighbouring states of Alabama & Georgia, many of your Memorialists therefore in lieu of being in funds from the cultivation of the lands when they may come into market, will probably have sunk property & will meet with no remuneration whatever for the improvement of the land, & the tots & privations they have endured, to which it may be added that the difficulty of transporting produce to market from many parts of the country, has hitherto been unusually great—Your Memorialists conceive that they may with the greater propriety request the indulgence which they have suggested, because there are at present no banking establishments in the territory, and consequently no means of meeting upon equal terms, the speculators who connected with the banks in the adjoining states, can command their coffers at pleasure.

The vast disproportion between the good & bad lands in this territory, must of necessity prove the cause of a comparatively thin population & render it a very vulnerable point in time of war, & should the valuable lands become the property of speculators, the population will be doubtless infinitely less dense: with this view of our territoria1 affairs, General Jackson when governor of Florida encouraged emigration by every means in his power, & our present respected chief magistrate has followed the example.—

The probability that your Memorialists may here as in the state of Alabama, be kept out of the market by monopolists, & the uncertainty of their being able to realise their claims are reflections that tend very much to damp the spirit of enterprise, & to retard the march of civilisation.—

When your Memorialists consider that in the years 1807 ²⁷ & 1808 ²⁸ Congress granted a preemption to the citizens in the state of Louisiana, giving them the lands at the government price, and also presented a large & valuable tract of land in the state of Alabama to foreigners who had not leveled one oak of the forest or turned up one furrow of land, they feel encouraged and can scarcely entertain a doubt that Congress will grant a preemption in favor of citizens who have borne the heat & burden of the day, & who are already identified with the soil.

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²⁷ Act approved Mar. 3, 1807, 2 STAT. 446.

²⁸Act approved Jan. 19, 1808, 2 STAT. 466~66. ~

²⁹ Concerning this French grant, see Terr. Papers (Miss.), vI, 811‑814:ibid., (Ala.), XVIII, passim.

FLORIDA TERRITORY 99

Wm. S. Pope	R. B. Bradshaw
Jacob Robinson	Robt. Thomas
M—T—Kilbee	Hn Gould ³⁰
Robt. Sulivant	Abraham Phillips
Ja T. Murphey	E L Wood
Cornelous Grantham	John Williams
Jn M. Pope	Tho. Goff
H D Stone	Wm Phillips
L. M Stone	Joseph Irwin Senr
Nathan Williamson	John M Hanson
Miles Sims	Joseph Russ
Robert H Irwin	John Roach
John Trussell	David Roach
Wilson Royal	N. Baker
Wm McNealy	J. B. Jackson
Owen Williams	Tho' H Sharp
Silas Wood	Thomas H Hull
David Speir	W A Jackson
William Piles	Wm Spers
Jeremiah Corley	Levi F Miller
Marmducke Kemp	Jesse Gregory
Jeremiah Sims	Richard Tuchtone
Cete. Hicks	Jno Smith
Frd Swearingin	Walter Davis
Amos Acock	Aaron Tyson
John Gray	Asa Fountain
James Daniel	Britain Mayo
Benj—H. Swearingin	Ethelbert Brantly
Warren Miller	James Stewart
Presley Scurlock	Wm Spears Jn
John H. Stone	Charles Howard
John B Roberts	Moses Holland
Joseph Irwin	Theofilus Sutton
Benjamin Hogg	Noah Hardson
Isaac Brown	Matthew Parker
Charles Trippe	Samuel Fowler
W. W. Loftin	Richard Martin
James Pyms	William Harrell
John Logtha	David Daniel
William McDonald	Atark Williams
M C Afee	Matthew Tucker
Thomas Littleton	Allaway Roach
Joseph Parrot	James C Roach
Henry Trippe	Levi Smith

100 . TERRITORIAL PAPERS

Wm Williams	J H Moore
James Bowen	Phillip McRae
John Stewart	Wade Dubose
Benjamin R Thompson	W R Lewis
Geo Jackson	Jas Hamilton
Caswell Lassiter	Claburn Lacey
Jacob Anderson	Alin Saul
Macerd Cains	Fred Lacey
James Tucker	Colin McRae
John Cattle	A McRae
Richd Hyriff (not readable)	David Shackelford
Wm Carson	Murdock McRae
John Stephens	Benj Foster
Anderson Todd	Warren Miller Jr
Elijah Hair	Wm Brown
Wm H Scurlock	J B Jackson
Tho. J. Scurlock	W A Jackson
Wm Martin	Thom Conte
Robert S. Scott	N Shackelford
Cullen Sutton	James B Russ
Theophilus Sutton	Robert Russ
Peter Thompson	Thomas Hull
Peter Wm Gautier	Wm Byon
Peter Wm Gautier Junr	M Witherington
Wm P. Hort	Jno Sullivan
Masters Russ	Frank Kent
Wm Evans	Jesse Kent
Lewis Belin	Wm Kent
John Bryan	Simeon Cook

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