Historical Background

Following the Revolutionary War the state of North Carolina disposed of lands formerly owned by the Crown and also by individuals such as the Earl of Granville, one of the largest British land owners. Under the state law settlers could locate unsettled land and claim it. A settler was authorized to claim up to 640 acres and an additional 100 acres for a wife and for each additional minor child. The fees for this granted land were two pounds and ten shillings per hundred acres. He could also purchase lands in excess of the authorized allotment for five pounds per 100 acres or approximately ten cents per acre. Upon purchase, the settler was also required to wait one full year to determine if there were other legitimate claims against the land. The Revolutionary War military grants were made on lands now held by the state of Tennessee and are not directly included in the Speculation Lands transactions or in this historical context.  

The process for purchasing land at the individual level in the state of North Carolina required that the transaction be recorded in county deed books. The recording of deeds follows a defined four-step process. Essentially it requires the individual to locate the desired land and make an application to an entry taker. The petition may then be submitted to a Court of Claims where the settler petitions the Council for a warrant to be conducted by a surveyor and to be set apart for the settler.  The warrant with a loosely described tract (this can be narrative or include plats) is then given to a court appointed surveyor who then makes the survey using the metes and bounds survey method that relates the land to natural markers such as streams, known property lines, rivers, or identifiable trees that are used as "corners." The court appointed surveyor then formalizes the survey by detailing the direction in degrees and the distance in poles or chains and he creates a plat (map). The petitioner is then required to pay a set fee for the survey service per acre and the fee to issue the patent, or the combined fees. A document recording the payment of the settler's fee is made and the land warrant and the survey are filed in the county and in the state secretary's office. Generally the state recorded the warrants in bound volumes. After recording, the patent was then issued to the individual petitioner. 

Many of the Speculation Lands were held in trust. This practice was used when the buyer had extreme debts to creditors. This arrangement then required multiple negotiations to sell the land as the trustee may be seen as  the legal "owner" of the land, i.e. hold the title, until the buyer can satisfy the debt. If the buyer cannot settle the debt according to the mortgage terms, the trustees may then become the de facto owners of the land. 

Land speculation was rampant during the period following the Revolutionary War and in North Carolina it was extraordinarily active in the 1790's. The speculation activity was stimulated by two legislative acts. One, the swamp act of 1784, did not affect western North Carolina, but its extension in 1794 covered the whole state and low-lying areas in the western region were then brought under the permissive survey terms of the act. Also in 1794 the legislature  revised the sale price of state land to 50 shillings per 100 acres. This act intended as a stimulus resulted in a flood of investors. By 1798 some five million acres of land had been amassed by speculators. Speculators included in-state as well as out-of-state investors. John Gray Blount, North Carolina merchant, held some one-million acres in Buncombe County alone. William Cathcart, Robert Morris, William R. Davie, Andrew Beard, William Tate, Robert Tate, William Cochran, John Holdiman, Jacob Eshleman, and other speculators held lands in western North Carolina that stagger the imagination. It was at this time that Tench Coxe began to acquire lands from the crest of the Blue Ridge to near Charlotte. His initial lands in Rutherford totaled 115,494 acres and these grew as did his appetite for land. Just how many acres were sold during this feeding frenzy is uncertain. The first state accounting of privately held lands did not occur until 1815 when the state placed a tax on privately held land and recorded 21,419,764 acres as “privately held.” ["Report of  Public Treasurer," Legislative Documents, North Carolina, 1834-1837.] The amassing of land through the speculation process, sometimes referred to as  “engrossment,” caused such great concern at the national level that legislation was enacted to slow the process of acquisition by absentee land owners. 

The engrossment of Cherokee land is particularly significant and poignant. Through a series of treaties, and through legislation, the Cherokee lands were first turned over to the Federal government to manage in 1783.  Federal Commissioners negotiated their first treaty with the Cherokee in 1785. This measure prohibited the settlement of Cherokee land by frontier settlers and restricted sale or cession of land without the approval of the U.S. government. It was, however, during this time that the Cherokee ceded territory in Buncombe County and the surrounding area that bordered the French Broad River. The acreage was reported to be some 352,000 acres. In 1791 a second treaty was negotiated and with this treaty the Cherokee relinquished another 462,082 acres in the region west of Asheville and extending to the Clinch River. Subsequent treaties negotiated increases in the amount paid out as annuities on the land by the Federal government. In an agreement, the treaty of 1798, the Cherokee again ceded territory. This time the acreage was some 375,680 ceded to the state of North Carolina. The acreage was located in an area that is roughly between present-day Hendersonville and Waynesville. The North Carolina legislature hoped this new purchase would settle military bonus requirements. In 1827 the Cherokee adopted their formal Constitution. By all accounts the status of the Indian nation was extraordinarily progressive --- some would say more progressive than many of their frontier neighbors. In 1828 gold was discovered in western North Carolina and the progress of the Cherokee began to erode. In the landmark case of the Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia the court declined to take the case, citing the foreign nation status of the Cherokee. Events began to go against the Cherokee and their future spiraled downward and by 1835  the treaty that brought about the "Trail of Tears" had been enacted. This treaty resulted in the last cession of land, some 711,680 acres. Through the cession of land in the treaties of 1777, 1778, 1791, 1798, and now the final treaty, the 1835 buy-out, settlers came into possession of a substantial series of tracts of  western North Carolina land. In the late 1820's another series of speculative land ventures occurred and the voracious acquisition of land began again.  

Gene Robbins noted that there is no evidence that the "Speculation Lands" Company, or "Speculation Land Company" ever existed as a legal entity.  A grant issued by the State of North Carolina in 1818 used the term "Speculation Lands" for the first time, while "Speculation Land Company" was found in later documents.

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