The Frontier in American HistoryTurner, Frederick Jackson
History
The Frontier in American History
Turner, Frederick Jackson
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Frontier thesis; United States -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion
And, whereas Lotts are Now Laid out for the most part Equally
to Rich and poore, Partly to keepe the Towne from Scatering to
farr, and partly out of Charitie and Respect to men of meaner
estate, yet that Equallitie (which is the rule of God) may be
observed, we Covenant and Agree, That in a second Devition and
so through all other Devitions of Land the mater shall be
drawne as neere to _equallitie according to mens estates_ as
wee are able to doe, That he which hath now more then his
estate Deserveth in home Lotts and entervale Lotts shall haue
so much Less: and he that hath Less then his estate Deserveth
shall haue so much more.[62:1]
This peculiar doctrine of "equality" had early in the history of the
colony created discontents. Winthrop explained the principle which
governed himself and his colleagues in the case of the Boston committee
of 1634 by saying that their divisions were arranged "partly to prevent
the neglect of trades." This is a pregnant idea; it underlay much of the
later opposition of New England as a manufacturing section to the free
homestead or cheap land policy, demanded by the West and by the labor
party, in the national public domain. The migration of labor to free
lands meant that higher wages must be paid to those who remained. The
use of the town lands by the established classes to promote an approved
form of society naturally must have had some effect on migration.
But a more effective source of disputes was with respect to the relation
of the town proprietors to the public domain of the town in contrast
with the non-proprietors as a class. The need of keeping the town
meeting and the proprietors' meeting separate in the old towns in
earlier years was not so great as it was when the new-comers became
numerous. In an increasing degree these new-comers were either not
granted lands at all, or were not admitted to the body of proprietors
with rights in the possession of the undivided town lands. Contentions
on the part of the town meeting that it had the right of dealing with
the town lands occasionally appear, significantly, in the frontier towns
of Haverhill, Massachusetts, Simsbury, Connecticut, and in the towns of
the Connecticut Valley.[63:1] Jonathan Edwards, in 1751, declared that
there had been in Northampton for forty or fifty years "two parties
somewhat like the court and country parties of England. . . . The first
party embraced the great proprietors of land, and the parties concerned
about land and other matters."[63:2] The tendency to divide up the
common lands among the proprietors in individual possession did not
become marked until the eighteenth century; but the exclusion of some
from possession of the town lands and the "equality" in allotment
favoring men with already large estates must have attracted ambitious
men who were not of the favored class to join in the movement to new
towns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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