Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/101

Rh and the people of the Territory which declares that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in it has prevented the Country from populating and been the reason of driving many valuable Citizens possessing Slaves to the Spanish side of the Mississippi, most of whom but for the prohibition contained in the ordinance would have settled in this Territory, and the consequences of keeping that prohibition in force will be that of obliging the numerous Class of Citizens disposed to emigrate, to seek an Asylum in that country where they can be permitted to enjoy their property.

Your memorialists however and the people they represent do not wish for a repeal of the article entirely, but that it may be suspended for the Term of Ten Years and then to be again in force, but that the slaves brought into the Territory during the Continuance of this Suspension and their progeny, may be considered and continued in the same state of Servitude, as if they had remained in those parts of the United States where Slavery is permitted and from whence they may have been removed.

Your memoralists beg leave further to represent, That the quantity of lands in the Territory open for Settlement is by no means sufficiently large to admit of a population adequate to the purposes of Civil Government. They therefore pray that the Indian titles to the land lying between the settled part of the Illinois country and the Ohio, between the general Indian boundary line running from the mouth of the river Kentucky [Greenville Treaty Line] and the tract commonly called Clark's Grant [Clark County, Indiana] and between and below the said Clark's Grant and the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, may be extinguished; and as an incouragement for a speedy population of the Country; that those lands and all other public lands in the Territory may be sold in Smaller Tracts and at a lower price than is now allowed by the existing Laws. A purchase of most of the Country above men- tioned but more especially of that part lying between the Illinois and the Ohio it is conceived may be easily obtained from the Indians and on very moderate and advantageous Terms.

Several persons (as your memoralists are informed) having settled on the public lands in this Territory with the intention of purchasing the same when offered for sale by the United States are fearful that advantages may be taken