trade vigorously carried on. In 1808,(168)
Congress so far extended the suffrage in Indiana as to make the ownership
of a town lot worth one hundred dollars an alternative qualification to
the possession of a freehold of fifty acres. This was in advance of the
law in some of the Eastern states.

After 1802, the land question can not be traced without reference to the
Indian question in Illinois. That question became important as soon as
American occupation was assured, and it remained important for fifty years
after the Revolution. The desire of the American settlers for land was
directly counter to the desire of the Indians to preserve their
hunting-grounds. Before the close of the eighteenth century, the list of
bloody deeds in Illinois had grown long.(169) The United States Government
appreciated the gravity of the situation and early made efforts to
purchase the land from the Indians. That part of the treaty of Greenville,
of 1795, which affected Illinois, extinguished the Indian title to a tract
six miles square, at the mouth of Chicago River; one six miles square, at
Peoria; one twelve miles square, near the mouth of the Illinois River; the
post of Fort Massac, and the land in the possession of the whites.(170)
The treaty of Fort Wayne, in 1803, ceded four square miles or less, at the
salt springs on Saline Creek, and some land west and southwest from
Vincennes. This treaty, with another made in the following August, ceded
three tracts of land, each one mile square, between Vincennes and
Kaskaskia, to be sites for taverns.(171) The treaty of Vincennes, of
August, 1803, ceded land in Illinois bounded by the Ohio, the Mississippi,
the Illinois, and the western watershed of the Wabash, except three
hundred and fifty acres near Kaskaskia, and twelve hundred and eighty
acres to be located. This last treaty was made with the depleted Kaskaskia
tribe.(172) As the claims of various tribes overlapped, an Indian treaty
rarely signifies that all controversy in regard to the land ceded is at an
end. Frequently one or more treaties must yet be made with other tribes,
and frequently a tribe refuses to abide by its agreement.

Previous to 1804, no land was sold in the Northwest Territory west of the
mouth of the Kentucky River. An act of March 26 of that year provided for
the opening of a land-office at Detroit to sell lands north of Ohio; one
at Vincennes to sell lands in its vicinity ceded by the treaty of Fort
Wayne; and one