e had been held jointly by the United States and
Great Britain since 1818.

Moreover, the Western men occupied a peculiar position in the country
because of the fact that a large number of them had bought their lands
from the Federal Government on easy terms, at two dollars or even a
dollar and a quarter an acre, and were still in debt for them to the
Government or the banks or other creditors. This indebtedness still
further stimulated their restlessness of character. The land laws of the
United States were apparently liberal, but unless the settler could
obtain land near a navigable stream, it was a most difficult matter to
buy even a quarter section and make the improvements necessary to
successful farming. And since all the river area had long since been
occupied, the Westerners of 1830 had bought their land in the remote
districts and begun the hard struggle of "paying out." The distance to
markets made this an almost hopeless task, and the holders of the
frontier farms came to think their lot a peculiarly hard one. They
resisted always; and in hard years, after driving a herd of cattle or a
drove of hogs to the distant market and receiving therefor barely the
cost of production, they were angry and resentful.

[Illustration: Distribution of Indians and Location of Indian Lands and
Unorganized Territory of the United States or the States]

The frontier remedy for these ills was an "easier" currency or high
prices for commodities, or stay laws against creditors who pressed for
their money. And since a great number of the Western farmers had simply
taken up their lands, before they were thrown open to sale, and made
improvements on them without procuring titles, they feared the
enforcement of the federal law against them and clamored for a
preemption system which would secure them their land, when the day of
sales did come, at the minimum price, $1.25 per acre. A still better
plan was already strongly urged, the free gift of small tracts of land
to all who would go West and build homes. Not only would this be good
for the home-seeker, but it would result in the rapid upbuilding of the
great wastes of the country. Animated by such purposes as these, Benton
and his colleagues in Congress were constantly gaining strength as their
constituents increased in number.

Thus the restless but devoted followers of Jackson were developing a
program: the removal of the Indians in order that more cotton and corn
might be grown