Wilson, John. Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, communicating, In compliance with the act of March 3, 1851, for the settlement of certain classes of private land claims within the Bastrop grant, a report of the Register and Receiver of the Land Office at Monroe, Louisiana. Washington: United States Senate, 1853. First Edition. [12587]
Recent brown cloth, with gilt titles, college name, and call numbers on spine, library bookplate and stamps on the end papers, 9 x 5 3/4 inches. 31 pp. Index; 815 pp. report. Very good. Hardcover.
32d Congress, 2d Session, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 4.
The entire volume is this one report. It presents, in great detail, 39 cases of the "first class," and 12 cases of the "second class" of land owners, qualified as settlers with "pre-exemption" claims, with all accompanying papers.
This includes sworn testimonies by landowners and others, lists of furnishings and improvements relative to the properties, historical accounts of ownership and settlement, some drawings of boundaries, &c. This scarce volume is the primary source for researching the early properties and settlers of northern Louisiana.
The Bastrop Grant was named after Baron de Bastrop, i.e. Philip Hendrik Nering Bogel, who arrived in Louisiana in 1795 from the Netherlands, and secured a written contract from the Spanish government to secure about one million acres of land for the purpose of establishing a colony. This vast territory is located in the Ouachita Valley of northeastern Louisiana and parts of southeastern Arkansas.
"After the Louisiana Purchase the U.S. refused to honor the titles of anyone who had purchased land within the Bastrop Grant. The Americans maintained that it was the Baron’s fault his colony had failed, a failure that forfeited his ownership rights. According to U.S. Attorneys he had sold property he didn’t own. This infuriated the folks who had purchased the property and like the American government, blamed the Baron for this injustice. They sued him and each other in a series of law suites that lasted nearly fifty years, culminating in a Supreme Court ruling and Congressional legislation.
"In 1851, the Supreme Court ruled that the Baron had fully executed his terms of the grant in good faith and the colony’s failure was entirely Spain’s fault for lack of funding, not the Baron’s for lack of effort. When speaking of the colony’s suspension Justice McLean stated, 'it was not through the fault of the Baron, but through obstacles opposed to him by the authorities of the colony themselves.' Also, the Spanish language used in the grant, when interpreted through Spain’s colonization laws, does indeed convey ownership to the Baron and it was reasonable for him to assume he owned the land with every right to sell it. On that point, Justice McLean confirmed 'it gives to the grantee, in my judgment, a complete title.' However, in their final decree the court stated that although the Baron may have owned the land under Spanish laws, the grant didn’t convey a 'perfect title' under their interpretation of U. S. laws, meaning he didn’t technically own it at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.
"This ruling sparked the final action in the saga of the Bastrop Land Grant, congressional legislation. On March 3, 1851, Congress enacted a law allowing all purchasers who could prove they had occupied property within the Bastrop grant for the past 20 years, to receive legal title to their land. Eventually, all of the disputed titles were settled, but the damage to the Baron’s reputation had already taken root. The opinions of the justices exonerating his character were never widely publicized but the belief that the Baron was a 'land swindler' was and continues to this day." - Bastrop County Historical Society online.
