Mashantucket Pequot Tribe 20th century to present What happened to the tribe in the early 20th century? the last Pequot living on the reservation, the federal government started planning to take back the land. Who was the last Pequot on the reservation? Elizabeth George Was the government successful in taking back the land? The tribe achieved political success by persuading Congressmen and appropriate committees in making the case for recognition and land claims.
What happened after they won claim to their land?
What happened after Pequot tribe won claim to their land?
By the time of the 1910 US Census, only 13 tribal members lived on the reservation. By the early 20th century, the reservation of 214 acres had a total population of 20 or 30 persons. In 1973, with the death of Elizabeth George (1894-1973), the last Pequot living on the reservation, the federal government started planning to take back the land. But in this period, the number of tribal members had increased, and they had maintained some continuity of culture. They began to organize politically and planned to assert their sovereignty and try to reclaim some of the land they had lost in the 19th-century Connecticut sale. In 1976, under the leadership of newly appointed tribal council chairman, Richard "Skip" Hayward, son of Elizabeth George, the Mashantucket Pequot filed a federal land claim against the state. They challenged the state's illegal sale of more than 800 acres of reservation lands in 1855. The US Department of Justice entered the suit, as it dealt with federal issues and constitutionality of the state action. The suit's settlement was documented by federal legislation in 1983: the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Land Claims Settlement Act included the tribe's federal recognition, and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. also filing a federal land claims suit against the state of Connecticut for its sale of land in 1855. The tribe achieved political success by persuading Congressmen and appropriate committees in making the case for recognition and land claims. In this period, some tribes based in New York filed land claim suits against its state government, winning in court. On October 18, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, which included federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot. They were the eighth American Indian tribe to gain federal recognition through an act of Congress rather than through the administrative process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Department of Interior. At least one other case of recognition had also been tied to the settlement of a tribe's legitimate land claim. The Mashantucket Pequot have since added to their reservation by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on behalf of the tribe. As of the 2000 census, their total land area was 2.17 square miles (5.6 km2). CANNOTANSWER
The Mashantucket Pequot have since added to their reservation by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on behalf of the tribe.
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is a federally recognized American Indian tribe in the state of Connecticut. They are descended from the Pequot people, an Algonquian-language tribe that dominated the southern New England coastal areas, and they own and operate Foxwoods Resort Casino within their reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. As of 2018, Foxwoods Resort Casino is one of the largest casinos in the world in terms of square footage, casino floor size, and number of slot machines, and it was one of the most economically successful in the United States until 2007, but it became deeply in debt by 2012 due to its expansion and changing conditions.

The tribe was federally recognized in 1983 through the Mashantucket Pequot Land Claims Settlement Act.  The federal land claims suit was brought by the tribe against the State of Connecticut and the Federal government, charging that the tribe had been illegally deprived of its land through state actions that were not ratified by the Senate. As part of the settlement of this suit, Congress gave federal recognition to the tribe, in addition to approving financial compensation so that the tribe could repurchase lost land. Tribal membership is based on proven lineal descent of 11 Pequot families whose ancestors were listed in the 1900 US Census.

The Mashantucket Pequot tribe is one of two federally recognized tribes in Connecticut, the other being the Mohegan Indian Tribe.

Geography
The Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation is located in Mashantucket, Connecticut, in southeastern Connecticut's New London County near the Thames River. It is held in trust for the tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The tribe also owns land in the adjacent towns of Ledyard, Preston and North Stonington, as well as in New London.

Demographics and membership

Today, the Mashantucket Pequot population consists of more than 1100 enrolled members. As a federally recognized tribe, the Mashantucket Pequots have the authority to determine their membership criteria. The tribe requires its members to be of proven lineal descent from 11 Mashantucket Pequot ancestors listed in the U.S. censuses of 1900 and 1910.  In 1996, the tribal membership voted to close enrollment, with the exception of children born to currently enrolled tribal members.

The 2000 census showed a resident population of 325 persons living on reservation land, 227 of whom identified themselves as American Indian, while others identify themselves as having more than one ethnicity, including non-Pequot spouses.  Since that time, the tribe expanded reservation housing, and members continue to relocate to the reservation as housing becomes available.

Government

As of 2020, the Mashantucket Pequot Elders Council officers are:

Chair—Marjorie Colebut-Jackson
Vice-Chair— Shirley "Laughing Woman" Patrick
Secretary/Treasurer-Anthony Sebastian

The seven members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council are:
Chair—Rodney A. Butler
Vice-Chair—Latoya Cluff
Secretary—Matthew Pearson 
Treasurer— Merrill Reels
Councilor—Daniel Menihan 
Councilor—Crystal Whipple
Councilor—Richard E. Sebastian

The current administration's seven-member council has stated that the tribe's priorities are protecting tribal sovereignty, focusing on the educational, emotional, and physical well-being of members, and working to leverage the tribe's financial and economic strengths through partnership initiatives, both locally and abroad. Mashantucket Pequot's local investments include the Lake of Isles golf course and the Spa at Norwich Inn, both of which have proven to be positive additions to local municipal tax bases.

Council members are elected by popular vote of the tribal membership to three-year, staggered terms. There are roughly 600 eligible voting members of the tribe, which numbered 1086 in 2018. Tribal Members must be at least 18 years old and in good standing with the tribe to be eligible to vote.

Chairman
Richard Arthur Hayward, 1975 to 1998.
Kenneth M. Reels, 1998 to 2003.
Michael Thomas, 2003 to 2009.
Rodney Butler, 2010 to present.

Economy
The Mashantucket Pequots have owned and operated one of the largest resort casinos in the world since 1992. The University of Connecticut analyzed the Foxwoods casino's effects on the Connecticut economy, and their report stated that it had a positive economic impact on the neighboring towns of Ledyard, Preston, and North Stonington, as well as the state of Connecticut, which has received more than $4 billion in slot revenue.

History
The Mashantucket Pequots are descendants of the historic Pequot tribe, an Algonquian-speaking people who dominated the coastal area from the Niantic River of Connecticut east to the Pawcatuck River which forms a border with Rhode Island, and south to Long Island Sound. A second descendant group is the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, which is not recognized by the Federal government.

During the colonial years, colonists recorded inter-tribal warfare, shifts in boundaries, and changes in power among the tribes. Scholars believe that the Pequots migrated from the upper Hudson River Valley into central and eastern Connecticut around 1500. William Hubbard wrote Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England in 1667 to explore the ferocity with which the Pequot tribe had attacked the colonists. He described them as invaders from "the interior of the continent" who "by force seized upon one of the places near the sea, and became a Terror to all their Neighbors." Contemporary scholars suggest that archaeological, linguistic, and documentary evidence show that the Pequots were indigenous for centuries in the Connecticut Valley before the arrival of settlers.

By the time that Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay colony were being established, the Pequots had established military dominance among Indian tribes in central and eastern Connecticut. They numbered some 16,000 in the most densely inhabited portion of southern New England. The smallpox epidemic of 1616–19 killed roughly 90-percent of the Indians on the eastern coast of New England, but it failed to reach the Pequot, Niantic and Narragansett tribes, and this assisted the Pequots in their rise to dominance. But the Massachusetts smallpox epidemic in 1633 devastated the region's Indian population, and historians estimate that the Pequots suffered the loss of 80-percent of their entire population. By the outbreak of the Pequot War in 1637, their numbers may have been reduced to about 3,000 in total.

Pequot War

In 1637, Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay colonies overwhelmed the Pequots during the Pequot War.  This followed the Indians' attack on Wethersfield, Connecticut that left several settlers dead. The military force of the two colonies was led by John Mason and John Underhill, and they launched an assault on the Pequot stronghold at Mystic, Connecticut, killing a significant portion of the Pequot population.

The colonists enslaved some of the surviving Pequots, sending some to the West Indies as labor on sugar cane plantations, putting others to indentured servitude as household servants in New England. Most of the survivors, however, were transferred to the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. A few Pequots returned to the reservation years later, and they intermarried with the colonists. Many of the Pequot descendants, while multi-racial, retained a sense of culture and continuity.

Present day
The Mashantucket Pequot reservation was created by the Connecticut Colony in 1666, but only 13 people lived on the reservation by the time of the 1910 United States Census. Elizabeth George (1894–1973) was one of the last Pequot living on the reservation and, when she died in 1973, the federal government started planning to reclaim the land which they presumed would be vacated upon the deaths of the last remaining Pequot residents.

Richard "Skip" Hayward, a grandson of Elizabeth George, led the Tribe's efforts in filing a federal land claims suit against the state of Connecticut which challenged the state's sale of 800 acres of reservation lands—an event which had occurred more than 100 years earlier in 1855. The State of Connecticut agreed with the Tribe, and the US Department of Justice entered the suit, as it dealt with Federal issues and the legality of the state action.

On October 18, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act which included Federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. They were the eighth American Indian tribe to gain Federal recognition through an act of Congress rather than through the administrative process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Department of Interior. The Mashantucket Pequots have since added to their land holdings by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the BIA on behalf of the tribe. As of the 2000 census, their total land area was .

In 1994 it purchased, and later developed further, what is now known as The Spa at Norwich Inn in Norwich, Connecticut.

Controversies
The Bureau of Indian Affairs had established criteria by which tribes seeking recognition had to document cultural and community continuity, a political organization, and related factors. Among the criteria are having to prove continuous existence as a recognized community since 1900, with internal government and tribal rules for membership.

In 1993, Donald Trump said that the owners of Foxwoods casino "did not look like real Indians." He became a key investor with the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots who were seeking federal recognition.

In his book Without Reservation: The Making of America's Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods the World's Largest Casino (2001), Jeff Benedict argues that the Mashantuckets are not descended from the historical Pequot tribe, but rather from the Narragansett tribe.  Spokesmen for the Pequots denounced the book and asserted that Benedict's genealogical research was inherently flawed, as it failed to reflect the correct descendant lineages for the Mashantucket Pequot people identified on the 1900 and 1910 US Censuses. Laurence Hauptman argued with Benedict's assertions on the genealogy of current members, and anthropologist Katherine A. Spilde also criticized it.

In 2002, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation of North Stonington, Connecticut briefly gained federal recognition, as did the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation in 2004. The State of Connecticut challenged these approvals, however, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs revoked recognition of both in 2005. It was the first time since the 1970s that the agency had terminated any federally recognized tribe.

Tribal membership rules
The Mashantucket Pequot tribe receives numerous requests from individuals applying for admission as members. They base tribal membership on an individual proving descent, by recognized genealogical documentation, from one or more members of eleven families included on the 1900 US census of the tribe.

Each federally recognized tribe has the authority to set its own membership/citizenship rules. Their descent rules are similar to the Cherokee Nation's reliance on proven direct descent from those Cherokee listed in the early 20th-century Dawes Rolls. CBS News reported in May 2000 that the tribal membership had voted to drop the requirement that tribal applicants have a minimum percentage of Mashantucket Pequot blood. However, the tribe has since begun to require genetic testing of newborn children whose parents are tribal members, to establish maternity and paternity.

Foxwoods

In 1986, Skip Hayward and financial backers built a high-stakes bingo hall on reservation land, and later they added other facilities. In 1992, the Mashantucket Pequots opened Foxwoods casino, which is now one of the largest casinos in the world. Adjacent to Foxwoods is the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center which interprets Pequot history and culture. The museum hosts local and international indigenous artists and musicians, as well as mounting changing exhibits of artifacts throughout the year.

See also

 Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement
 Foxwoods Resort Casino
 Indian gaming
 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
 Mashantucket Pequot Reservation Archeological District, a U.S. National Historic Landmark
 Wetu

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Hubbard, William. The History of the Indian Wars in New England 2 vols. (Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1845).
Mason, John. A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637/Written by Major John Mason, a principal actor therein, as then chief captain and commander of Connecticut forces; With an introduction and some explanatory notes by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Prince (Boston: Printed & sold by. S. Kneeland & T. Green in Queen Street, 1736).
Mather, Increase. A Relation of the Troubles which have Hapned in New-England, by Reason of the Indians There, from the Year 1614 to the Year 1675 (New York: Arno Press, [1676] 1972).
Underhill, John. Nevves from America; or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England: Containing, a True Relation of their War-like Proceedings these two yeares last past, with a figure of the Indian fort, or Palizado.  Also a discovery of these places, that as yet have very few or no inhabitants which would yeeld special accommodation to such as will plant there . . . By Captaine Iohn Underhill, a commander in the warres there (London: Printed by I. D[awson] for Peter Cole, and are to be sold at the signe of the Glove in Corne-hill neere the Royall Exchange, 1638).
Mashantucket Pequot Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Connecticut United States Census Bureau
Vincent, Philip. A True Relation of the late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Salvages: With the present state of things there (London: Printed by M[armaduke] P[arsons] for Nathanael Butter, and Iohn Bellamie, 1637).

Secondary sources

Benedict, Jeff. Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World's Largest Casino (New York, NY: Perennial, 2001).
Review: Without Reservation, Indian Gaming
Boissevain, Ethel. "Whatever Became of the New England Indians Shipped to Bermuda to be Sold as Slaves," Man in the Northwest 11 (Spring 1981), pp. 103–114.
Cave, Alfred A. "The Pequot Invasion of Southern New England: A Reassessment of the Evidence", New England Quarterly 62 (1989): 27–44.
Cave, Alfred A. The Pequot War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996).
Eisler, Kim Isaac. Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World's Most Profitable Casino (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Fromson, Brett Duval. Hitting the Jackpot: The Inside Story of the Richest Indian Tribe in History (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).
Hauptman, Laurence M. & James D. Wherry, eds. The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation  (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).
McBride, Kevin. "The Historical Archaeology of the Mashantucket Pequots, 1637–1900", in Laurence M. Hauptman and James Wherry, eds. Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), pp. 96–116.
McBride, Kevin. "Prehistory of the Lower Connecticut Valley" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1984).
https://books.google.com/books/about/Facing_East_from_Indian_Country.html?id=NXCxAl75LfIC[ Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America], (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
Simmons, William S. Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620–1984 (Dartmouth, NH: University Press of New England, 1986).
Spiero, Arthur E., and Bruce E. Speiss. "New England Pandemic of 1616–1622: Cause and Archaeological Implication," Man in the Northeast, 35 (1987): 71–83.
Vaughan, Alden T. "Pequots and Puritans: The Causes of the War of 1637", William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., Vol. 21, No. 2 (April 1964), pp. 256–269; also republished in Roots of American Racism: Essays on the Colonial Experience'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

External links
 Map of the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation, 2009, US Census Bureau
"The Pequot", Foxwoods
Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement, Pub. L. No. 98-134, 97 Stat. 851 (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 1751–60), 1983
Pequot History, Dick Shovel
National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA)

Native American tribes in Connecticut
American Indian reservations in Connecticut
Algonquian ethnonyms
Algonquian peoples
Pequot
The Omaha Claim Club, also called the Omaha Township Claim Association and the Omaha Land Company, was organized in 1854 for the purpose of "encouraging the building of a city" and protecting members' claims in the area platted for Omaha City in the Nebraska Territory. At its peak the club included "one or two hundred men", including several important pioneers in Omaha history. The Club included notable figures important to the early development of Omaha.  It was disbanded after a ruling against their violent methods by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1860 in Baker v. Morton.

Background
The first claim club in the United States was established by settlers around Burlington, Iowa, where claims were staked out soon after the American Revolutionary War. These clubs were established in direct violation of federal law, in what J. Sterling Morton described as "that independence characteristic of the commonwealth by which it became a state."  Early Nebraska settlers were breaking the law as well, as they invaded Omaha tribal lands to which the United States had claim but no ownership.  Morton noted that, "In both Nebraska and Iowa the squatters on lands were fully protected by the unauthorized if not positively illegal rules and promises of the claim clubs."

According to two prominent historians, the roots of the Omaha Claim Club lay in the city's founders' disagreements with "federal land laws that they considered unfair and unenforceable. Critics argued that the government's policy of selling land impeded rather than promoted progress ... Almost all thought that the land policy favored wealthy speculators."

A federal decree in 1834 that defined lands west of the Missouri "Indian Territory" prevented settlement by Americans for another 20 years. In 1846 Mormon settlers received permission from the Omaha tribe to establish their Winter Quarters near the Missouri River west of Kanesville, Iowa, and in 1848 Martin Van Buren's Free Soil Party advocated the federal government give away free land in the presidential election. By 1853, Kanesville townspeople had already driven stakes in the land that would become Omaha. Logan Fontenelle, along with six other leaders of the Omaha tribe, signed over rights to Omaha lands on March 16, 1854, and the Kansas–Nebraska Act was signed on May 30, 1854. On June 24 of that year the U.S. government announced the treaty with the Omaha tribe, and within 11 days, on July 4, Omaha City was formally founded.

Claim club meetings
The Omaha Claim Club met regularly to confer upon rules and elect officers as necessary. In February 1857 a mass meeting was held at the "Claim House" on the Pioneer Block in Omaha. The Pioneer Block was located between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets on Farnam Street, on the present-day site of the Gene Leahy Mall in downtown Omaha.

With more than one hundred men present, delegations were also there from Bellevue, Florence, Elkhorn and Papillion. Each of these groups offered Omaha's Claim Club their "aid and counsel ... to assist people of Omaha in the protection of their rights."

First meeting

When the Nebraska Territory was organized in 1854, there were no laws regulating land claims by settlers or claim jumpers. The Homestead Act remedying this was not enacted until 1862. In the meantime, a group of early settlers in the Omaha area formed a club determined to provide security for the land interests of its members. The organizing meeting of the Omaha Claim Club was held on July 22, 1854, at the site of the "lone tree", the only landmark within the Omaha City limits at the time. The lone tree was also the ferry landing leading to Kanesville, Iowa.

At the first meeting a constitution and bylaws were prepared and adopted, and officers were elected. Samuel Lewis was chosen chairman, M. C. Gaylord was secretary; Alfred D. Jones became judge, S. Lewis was clerk, and R. B. Whitted was sheriff. John M. Thayer, A. J. Hanscom, Andrew J. Poppleton, Lyman Richardson, Thomas B. Cuming, Dr. George L. Miller, Dr. Enos Lowe, Jesse Lowe, Joseph Barker, Sr., Joseph, Jr., and George E. Barker, 0. D. Richardson, Byron Reed, John Redick, and James Woolworth were members, as well. In 1855 the membership included nearly all the town's male residents. The motto, "An injury to one is the concern of all," was adopted.

The stated goals of the Omaha Claim Club were to protect new settlers from illegal claim jumpers who would attempt to take possession of land already claimed if possible, and to promote the development of Omaha City. However, more than one claim was made of the Claim Club's dubious purposes, including collusion and bullying. There was an early understanding that no member could own more than  of timber. Other agreements settled the amount of land each member could own, requirements for claiming land in the area, requirements for maintaining land ownership, price fixing for land, as well as other price controls. There were also several punishments determined for settlers who violated any part of the club's rules, either stated or unstated.

Influencing government
The First Nebraska Territorial Legislature was primarily composed of claim clubs members from across the territory. Despite federal law limiting land claims over , state senators passed an act that legalized claims of 320 acres (1.3 km²) and providing penalties for trespassing upon them.

In 1855 Colonel Lorin Miller, later mayor of Omaha, surveyed Scriptown in the spring and summer on behalf of the Omaha Claim Club. This land was used to persuade members of the Nebraska Territorial Legislature later that year as they voted on the location of the state capitol, which Omaha kept until 1867.

Vigilante violence
The club was effective in protecting its members' claims, primarily and frequently using mob violence to enforce its rule. The club's vigilantes rode masked and at night, frustrating efforts to identify the mob. The Omaha Claim Club became recognized as the unofficial court governing land claims, and in 1854 Alfred D. Jones, a surveyor, divided land into blocks starting by the ferry landing. That was the first time anyone planned what Omaha would look like. Jones was soon afterwards appointed the first postmaster of Omaha. Later Club leadership included Andrew J. Poppleton.

The club's original claim of nearly four thousand acres (16 km²) frustrated many settlers who came after the club was formed. Generally they objected to the vast extent of territory held by so few individuals and attempted to "jump", or occupy for themselves, the claims of the members of the Omaha Claim Club. After this happened, a vigilante committee formed by members of the club visited the claim jumper to inform him that he was trespassing upon land previously claimed. They would warn the intruder that if he didn't vacate immediately he would be forced to. If the committee encountered resistance, the jumper soon found himself neck-deep in trouble — the severity depending upon the intensity of resistance.

Shooting out the Frenchman
Cam Reeves was the first figure identified in a dispute for the Omaha Claim Club. An unnamed "Frenchman" had staked a claim in 1854 on part of Alfred D. Jones's land and refused to move off. The club sent for Reeves, who had gained a reputation as a trouble-shooter in Missouri, and he started a long battle with the Frenchman that drew crowds from neighboring towns. "The Frenchman took his beating and fled", while Cam Reeves stayed. He became Omaha's first sheriff.

Horse thieves
The Claim Club's "vigilante committee" activities were not limited to claim jumping. The vigilantes often cooperated with Sheriff Reeves, but often acted as lawmen, judges, juries and executioners themselves. Public whippings and lynchings were common.

Frontier punishment varied according to the degree of harm resulting from the crime. The pioneers dealt with most horse thieves mercilessly. In March, 1858, a posse of angered farmers captured two desperadoes who had stolen horses near Florence. After they were jailed in Omaha's courthouse, the Claim Club broke in and took the men, without any resistance from the sheriff. They hanged the horse thieves two miles (3 km) north of Florence that day, with no repercussions, except for Sheriff Reeves, who was fined for not fulfilling his duties.

Callahan versus Cuming
Another story involved acting Governor Thomas B. Cuming. Apparently, Cuming hired an Irish man named Callahan to make improvements on Cuming's land in order to conform with the homestead law. Callahan, however, filed a claim on the land for himself. When the claim club demanded that Callahan surrender the deed of ownership, a committee was appointed to "persuade" him. Callahan was then taken to the Missouri River, a hole was chopped in the ice, and he was dunked through the hole until he and the claim club came to an agreement. Callahan died within a year, apparently from the after-effects of hypothermia brought on from his dunking.

John Kelly
John Kelly was a carpenter with a legal claim to  near Omaha. When word reached his aunt, Gertrude Wiley, that four wagons from the Claim Club were coming to "talk Kelly out" of his claim, she quickly hid him in her cellar in Saratoga. After a day of continual harassment from the vigilantes, Kelly walked  south to Bellevue where he escaped to Iowa. After his deed to the land came, he went back to his land and was not bothered again.

Other cases
On February 2, 1856, the club was reorganized as the Omaha Township Claim Association but its arbitrary powers continued as before — in several instances even more viciously. Other victims of vigilante "justice" distributed by the Omaha Claim Club include Jacob S. Shull, Daniel Murphy, and George "Doc" Smith, who was later the Douglas County Surveyor for many years.

Baker v. Morton

The Circuit court of the District of Nebraska decided against a claim brought by Alexander Baker versus William Morton, both early Omaha settlers; Morton was involved in the Omaha Claim Club. Baker appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1870 the Supreme Court ruled for Baker in the trial of Baker v. Morton.

According to court proceedings, A. H. Baker was forced to sign over the land he claimed to another person for free because of threats made by members of the Omaha Claim Club. Important figures in Omaha's history testified during the trial, including John Redick and James Woolworth. In the trial the club was found to commonly take landowners who refused to sell their property to the nearby Missouri River by force. With a rope tied around the person's neck, members of the club repeatedly dunked him until he agreed to sell. In this case, the club threatened to hang or drown Baker. The judge found Baker to have been forced to sign the contract through violence, and overturned the circuit court's earlier finding on behalf of Morton.

Demise
Reasons for the demise of the Omaha Township Claim Association, aka the Omaha Claim Club, vary. The Supreme Court ordered the breakup in their ruling. Other sources say that with the arrival of Omaha's United States Land Office, the claims club simply was not needed. In 1856, the U.S. government surveyed the land in Douglas County, including Omaha, and on March 17, 1857 the U.S. Land Office opened.

The Omaha Claim Club, along with many claim clubs around Nebraska, disbanded by 1860.

Legacy
The Omaha Claim Club and others like it are credited to bringing order to a lawless frontier. By enforcing the "laws" they made up, they supposedly created an order where the U.S. government was not prepared to otherwise. In 1857 when the Buchanan Administration announced the sale of lands in Nebraska would start in 1858, claims clubs across the state, led by Omaha, protested against him on the grounds that they would not be ready for the sale. The Administration was persuaded to wait until 1859.

The Saratoga Claim Club, established in 1857 north of Omaha City, was formed in admiration of Omaha's club. The East Omaha Land Company of 1882 and the South Omaha Land Company of 1887 are unrelated.

See also
 History of Omaha

References

Pioneer history of Omaha, Nebraska
Organizations based in Omaha, Nebraska
American frontier
1854 establishments in Nebraska Territory
Crime in Omaha, Nebraska Claim clubs, also called actual settlers' associations or squatters' clubs, were a nineteenth-century phenomenon in the American West. Usually operating within a confined local jurisdiction, these pseudo-governmental entities sought to regulate land sales in places where there was little or no legal apparatus to deal with land-related quarrels of any size. Some claim clubs sought to protect squatters, while others defended early land owners. In the twentieth century, sociologists suggested that claim clubs were a pioneer adaptation of democratic bodies on the East Coast, including town halls.

Purpose
Claim clubs were essentially designed to "do what politicians refused to do: make land available to needy settlers." Their general purpose was to protect the first settlers to arrive on unclaimed lands, particularly in their rights to speculate and cultivate. With the continuous availability of frontier lands from the 1830s through the 1890s, settlers kept moving west. Each claim club established its own rules of governance and enforcement; however, these were almost always vigilante actions. Period accounts report that in some areas, claim clubs were regarded with "the same majesty of the law of the Supreme Court of the United States."

East Coast land speculators were prone to roam the recently opened Western United States and select the most desirable spots with the intent to outbid the settler and real claimant when the lands were offered for sale at the Land Office. Claim jumpers were also a problem. Generally they sought to be present at a land sale when the first claimant was not there. In many cases, when people who claimed land and then did not live on it and had not developed it with a shelter, fencing or other structures, "claim jumpers" would move in.

This was one scenario where claim clubs would enter. The absentee-owned land would be exploited directly and indirectly, or just simply seized with the title held "by claim club." Members might vote expensive local improvements for the land, including roads and schoolhouses, and assign the heavy costs of development as a tax burden on the land held by absentees. This became the regular policy of some claim clubs, designed to force the sale by absentee owners to actual residents, or at least to local speculators.

Claim clubs did not always protect the honest settler against the scheming speculator. Although claim club law sometimes shielded of the simple homesteader, it was also a tool and a weapon of the speculator. Claim clubs acted not only to protect a squatter's title to land he lived on and was cultivating, but also to help the same squatter defend unoccupied second and third tracts against the claim of later arrivals.

The institution of the claim club is said to have "reached perfection" in Iowa, where more than a hundred such groups carefully regulated land commerce until the United States government intervened.

Examples
One early claim club in the United States was established by settlers around Burlington, Iowa, where claims were formed before the Sac and Fox people ceded the area in 1832. These clubs were established in direct violation of federal law, in what J. Sterling Morton described as a claim meeting  According to one report, "Such clubs sprang up 'as readily as did the sunflowers wherever the prairie sod was broken' in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska..." Other reports corroborate the spread of claim clubs, with their presence felt in the aforementioned states, as well as New Mexico, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Washington.

Colorado
In Colorado City, Colorado, the El Paso Claim Club was formed by members of the Colorado City Town Company in 1859. The Club reportedly "settled land disputes and recorded real property transactions until federal government regulations provided for an official land office in 1862."

The Cañon City (Colorado) Claim Club first platted the town of Cañon City in 1860. The club had six members, each of whom mined coal, iron, gypsum, marble and granite mining in the area, and Denver also had a claim club.

Nebraska
The Omaha Claim Club was founded in 1854, the year the city was founded. Initially designed to protect the interests of 20 men, it grew to include almost two hundred settlers. The group used violent means to impose "frontier justice", including dunking in the frozen Missouri River, running off legitimate settlers, and other forms of vigilantism. The club imposed their will on the Nebraska Territorial Legislature as well, and with the passage of a territorial law granting  per settler, they doubled the federally imposed limit of . The club ran Omaha until the Supreme Court ruled against their violent measures in Baker v. Morton, a hallmark in contract law cases.

In the 1854 the Bellevue (Nebraska) Claim Club was organized. The original aim of the club was "to secure the peaceful adjustment of all cases in which claims in this then un-surveyed country overlapped each other." The club was renowned for visiting "claim jumpers" with beatings to convince them to leave their claims. Its last act, reportedly in 1858, was to attempt to tar and feather an old man and his three sons reportedly squatting in the area. The Platte Valley Claim Club was established in Fremont in August, 1856 to settle land disputes, and folded by late 1857.

Fort Saint Vrain, Nebraska Territory also had a claim club in the late 1850s that was designed to keep the town from failing. It did not succeed.

Kansas
One story of claim club "justice" comes from Montgomery County, Kansas town in 1867. An early settler had tilled his land and improved on it, according to the provisions of the Homestead Act. However, he had not lived on it for five years. After he sold it to another man, this same settler reportedly went to the United States Land Office to preempt the man to whom he sold the land. After doing so this settler attempted to displace the man he sold the land to and claim it as his own. When the local claim club ordered the town sheriff to "put the man away", the original settler was never seen again.

Iowa
Claim clubs also secured members' stakes on land they speculated to become important to the federal government, for the purpose of selling it back to the government at a later date. Members of one Iowa claim club purchased 15,000 acres (61 km2) in central Iowa, which eventually was sold in order to develop both the state capitol in Des Moines and Iowa City, where the state university is today. 
Iowa had several other claim clubs, as well. In Fort Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Iowa and Iowa City active clubs abounded. In Iowa City the club's mission was to "...protect all persons who do or may hold claims, against the interference of any person who shall attempt to deprive such claim holders of their claims and improvements, by preemption or otherwise."

Others
From 1832 to 1843, Dupage County, Illinois created a number of claim clubs until the federal land surveyors arrived. In 1835 settlers in Elkhorn Creek, Wisconsin formed a claim club. Other settlers did the same, including the town of Yankton, South Dakota. There is also a report of a claim club in Alabama in the 1850s.

Decline
In the latter part of the 1850s claim clubs came under pressure from the federal government, and lost public support in many communities. In an 1858 ruling, the United States Department of the Interior addressed claim clubs directly, stating that, "A member of a claim club, organized for the purpose of illegally appropriating and selling public lands, will be held to the strictest proof of honest intent, when asserting an individual claim."

The violent actions of the Omaha Claim Club may have brought about the demise of claim clubs across the country. In 1860, in Baker v. Morton, the Supreme Court ordered that city's club to disband. Other sources say that with the arrival of several United States Land Offices across the West, the claim clubs simply were not needed.

The Omaha Claim Club, along with many claim clubs around Nebraska, disbanded by 1860.

See also
 Preemption Act of September 4, 1841
 Bald Knobbers
 Stockgrowers association

References

DIY culture
Real property law in the United States
Geography terminology
History of the Midwestern United States
Squatting in the United States