The political economy of claim clubs: Squatters, presumptive rights, and the origins of legal title on the American frontier

Two critical institutional developments characterize the American frontier. The first is the proliferation of informal property regimes among squatters on government- and privately-owned land in the important frontier sectors of agriculture, mining, logging, and ranching. The second is the politics that led government to forgo revenue by weakening land auctions. How did squatters achieve order on the frontier in an increasingly complex environment? Why did politicians systematically undermine revenue through land-grant legislation?;My thesis can be stated as follows. Claim clubs---the organizations formed by squatters---created an effective informal contracting regime in a chaotic frontier environment and, once in place, were the primary mechanisms of change in land laws. These private-order organizations provide insight into the most pervasive period of informal order in the history of the United States and an explanation for one of the most important policy reversals in the Nineteenth Century---the decline of land auctions and the emergence of squatters' rights.