No Johnny-Come-Latelys

These ruling "Association Clubs" in the western settlements were not always democratic.  The honest settler didn't always win against the scheming speculator.  They acted not only to protect the squatters title to the land they lived on and farmed, but also helped to gain second and third claims against later settlers.  

A better name for these "Settler's Associations" would have been "First-Arrival Associations."  They protected the first settlers against anyone else.  The non-resident speculator rarely made any money as unimproved land by absentee owners was exploited, sometimes it was simply seized.  Other times taxes was levied on it for local improvements such as schools or roads without the land owner's knowledge, thus forcing the land owner to sell the unoccupied land for taxes.  

The Association law stood for the "Priority Principle" which meant that those who arrived first were the priority.  The rules that existed before the formal government were the superior law.  The principle helped to show that the Johnny-come-lately, the laggard, the slow starter, had no place on the new frontier.  They were the weak, and weak men would not do in the West.

The priority principle was at first about the emptiness and newness of America.  It was first about the law of the land, but it would come to be applied to the race for America's treasures - for gold and silver, for water, for grasslands, for oil.

Next time....Law in the Treasure Towns

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Today in Pioneer History: "On July 2, 1809, Chief Tecumseh, chief of the Shawnee tribe, urges his people of the Old Northwest and Deep South to unite and resist the the white settlers  squatting on their lands.  Together he said the tribes were strong enough to stop the whites from taking further land.  A year later he organized the Ohio Valley Confederacy and for several years he was successful in delaying further white settlement in the land.