The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 91 



ment. The lack of proper government surveys, and 

 the looseness with which the records were kept in 

 the land office, put a premium on fraud and encour 

 aged carelessness. People could make and record 

 entries in secret, and have the land surveyed in 

 secret, if they feared a dispute over a title; no one 

 save the particular deputy surveyor employed need 

 ed to know. 4 The litigation over these confused 

 titles dragged on with interminable tediousness. 

 Titles were often several deep on one "location," 

 as it was called; and whoever purchased land too 

 often purchased also an expensive and uncertain 

 lawsuit. 



The two chief topics of thought and conversa 

 tion, the two subjects which beyond all others en 

 grossed and absorbed the minds of the settlers, were 

 the land and the Indians. We have already seen how 

 on one occasion Clark could raise no men for an 

 expedition against the Indians until he closed the 

 land offices round which the settlers were throng 

 ing. Every hunter kept a sharp lookout for some 

 fertile bottom on which to build a cabin. The vol 

 unteers who rode against the Indian towns also 

 spied out the land and chose the best spots whereon 

 to build their blockhouses and palisaded villages 

 as soon as a truce might be made, or the foe driven 



4 Draper MSS. in Wisconsin State Hist. Ass. Clark papers. 

 Walter Darrell to Col. William Fleming, St. Asaphs, April 14, 

 1783. These valuable Draper MSS. have been opened to me 

 by Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, the State Librarian; I tak 

 this opportunity of thanking him for his generous courtesy 

 to which I am so greatly indebted. 



