Speculation Nation: Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic (Early American Studies)

During the first quarter-century after its founding, the United States was swept by a wave of land speculation so unprecedented in intensity and scale that contemporaries and historians alike have dubbed it a "mania." In Speculation Nation, Michael A.Blaakman uncovers the revolutionary origins of this real-estate bonanza-a story of ambition, corruption, capitalism, and statecraft that stretched across millions of acres from Maine to the Mississippi and Georgia to the Great Lakes. Patriot leaders staked the success of their revolution on the seizure and public sale of Native American territory.Initially, they hoped that fledgling state and national governments could pay the hefty costs of the War for Independence and extend a republican society of propertied citizens by selling expropriated land directly to white farmers.But those democratic plans quickly ran aground of a series of obstacles, including an economic depression and the ability of many Native nations to repel U.S. invasion.