By the Civil War era, the United States relied primarily on federal land policies to accomplish the goal of absorbing Indigenous possessions into the national domain.
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įrom 1776 to 1900, the United States purchased, appropriated, or conquered approximately two million square miles of Indigenous land – a rate of transfer of two square miles per hour within that period of time. Now, thanks to a groundbreaking 2020 study by Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone, we have a much better appreciation of the degree to which the Morrill Act, and, by extension Cornell University’s subsequent founding, were deeply implicated with another prominent demand in nineteenth century America: that for profits taken from expropriated Indigenous land.
#The hunting ground transcript professional
The compilation of this information, it is hoped, will provide not only a more clear understanding of the relationship between Cornell University’s founding and particular incidences of Indigenous dispossession, but also a basis for future conversations regarding the University’s obligations in this matter.Īccounts of Cornell University’s founding as New York State’s land-grant college under the terms of the Morrill Act of 1862 typically highlight the manner in which its organization and objectives addressed the “cardinal demands of the time”: liberalization of curricula in American higher education, promotion of scientific research, and democratized access to professional training in agriculture and engineering (then known as the “mechanic arts”). Cornell (and later, by Cornell University staff), permits us to identify seven specific treaty surrenders of Indigenous land and/or resources concluded circa 1825-1851 that later generated direct benefits to Cornell University. Analysis of the parcels of Morrill Act acreage located, entered, and subsequently managed by Mr. These arrangements are unique in the history of the Morrill Act, and are considered here in light of their roots in prior dispossessions of Indigenous nations by the United States federal government.
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New York State received nearly one-tenth of the “public land” granted by the 1862 Morrill Act, the income from which was to constitute an endowment for at least one college in the state providing instruction in agriculture and the “mechanic arts.” The subsequent administration of those resources by Ezra Cornell and succeeding Cornell University officials took advantage of minimal federal regulatory oversight at the time to adopt innovative financial mechanisms which yielded nearly one-third of the total Morrill Act land-grant revenues generated by all the states to Cornell University.