![]() ![]() ![]() Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, New York Public Library Digital Collections. ![]() “Jefferson” engraving by William Holl, The Miriam and Ira D. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it’s liberty and interests by the most lasting bands. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. ![]() We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultivation. Jefferson passionately believed that the system had to make small plots of land available to the individual farmer (as opposed to large plots available only to the wealthy, to speculators, or to large companies) in order to spread democracy throughout the territory. In response to these needs, the Continental Congress created a committee chaired by Thomas Jefferson to create a system for surveying the new territory. In order to grow the republic and repay war debt, the new government needed a system of organizing this land for sale. Indiana Historical Bureau, “Indiana Territory,” The Indiana Historian (March 1999), 4, accessed in.gov/history.Īfter the American Revolutionary War and via the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the British surrendered their claim to the thirteen colonies and ceded a vast amount of western and southern territory to the young United States. Despite their disparate perspectives, both would soon see the redefinition and reorganization of the landscape by the rectangular survey system. For the indigenous people who first called this land home, the marks cut and burned into the trees represented the impending and permanent loss of that home. For Thomas Jefferson and other leaders of the young United States, this group of men sent to survey the Indiana Territory represented the spread of democracy. For those residents of the Indiana Territory who witnessed this bizarre parade in the fall of 1804, this group represented vastly different futures. Once in a while, they stopped to score a tree, plant a post, and record their progress. Gardner, “How Did Washington Make His Millions?” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter 2013) accessed Ī small group of men made their way through the thick southern Indiana forest dragging chains in their wake. “Drawing of George Washington as Surveyor” in Andrew G. ![]()
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