The Mississippi divided the population of Wisconsin nearly equally in 1836, but subsequent years witnessed greater growth upon her western bank. Never in the westward movement had more attractive farms been made available than those on the right bank now reached by the river steamers and the ferries from northern Illinois. Two years after the erection of Wisconsin the western towns received their independent establishment, when in 1838 Iowa Territory was organized by Congress, including everything between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and north of the state of Missouri. Burlington, a village of log houses with perhaps five hundred inhabitants, became the seat of government of the new territory, while Wisconsin retired east of the river to a new capital at Madison. At Burlington a first legislature met in the autumn, to choose for a capital Iowa City, and to do what it could for a community still suffering from the results of the panic. The only Iowa lands open to lawful settlement were those of the Black Hawk purchase, many of which were themselves not surveyed and on the market. But the pioneers paid little heed to this. Leaving titles to the future, they cleared their farms, broke the sod, and built their houses. [Illustration: IOWA SOD PLOW] The heavy sod of the Iowa prairies was beyond the strength of the individual settler. In the years of first development the professional sod breaker was on hand, a most important member of his community, with his great plough, and large teams of from six to twelve oxen, making the ground ready for the first crop. In the frontier mind the land belonged to him who broke it, regardless of mere title. The quarrel between the squatter and the speculator was perennial. Congress in its laws sought to dispose of lands by auction to the highest bidder,--a scheme through which the sturdy impecunious farmer saw his clearing in danger of being bought over his modest bid by an undeserving speculator. Accordingly the history of Iowa and Wisconsin is full of the claims associations by which the squatters endeavored to protect their rights and succeeded well. By voluntary association they agreed upon their claims and bounds. Transfers and sales were recorded on their books. When at last the advertised day came for the formal sale of the township by the federal land officer the population attended the auction in a body, while their chosen delegate bid off the whole area for them at the minimum price, and without competition. At times it happened that the speculator or the casual purchaser tried to bid, but the squatters present with their cudgels and air of anticipation were usually able to prevent what they believed to be unfair interference with their rights. The claims associations were entirely illegal; yet they reveal, as few American institutions do, the orderly tendencies of an American community even when its organization is in defiance of existing law.