The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

by Oscar Micheaux

  CHAPTER XXXII

  A LONG NIGHT

  People began forming into line immediately after luncheon, on theafternoon of the last day of September and continued throughout theafternoon. When I saw such a crowd gathering, I got my folks into theline. When it is taken into consideration that the land office would notopen until nine o'clock the next morning, this seemed like a foolishproceeding. It was then four o'clock and the crowd would have to remainin line all night to hold their places (to be exact, just seventeenhours). Remaining in line all night was not pleasantly anticipated, andnights in October in South Dakota are apt to get pretty chilly, but theline continued to increase and by ten o'clock the street in front of theland office was a surging mass of humanity, mostly purchasers ofrelinquishments, waiting for the opening of the land office the nextmorning and to be in readiness to protect the claim they had contractedfor. Hot coffee and sandwiches were sold and kept appetites supplied,and drunks mixed here and there in the line kept the crowd wakeful, manysinging and telling stories to enliven the occasion. I held the placefor my fiancee through the night, and although I had become used to allkinds of roughness, sitting up in the street all the long night was farfrom pleasant.

  About two o'clock in the morning, squatters, who had spent the earlypart of the night on the prairie in order to be on their claims aftermidnight, began to arrive and took their places at the foot of the line.All land not filed on by the original number holders was to be open forfiling as soon as the land office opened, and squatters had frommidnight until the opening of the land office in which to beat the manwho waited to file, before locating on the land, a squatters rightholding first in such cases. Many had hired autos to bring them in fromthe reservation immediately after midnight, or as soon after midnight asthey had made some crude improvements on the land. Many auto loadsarrived with a shout and claimants leaped from the tonneaus, fallinginto line almost before the vehicles had stopped. The line wound backand forth along the street like a snake and formed into a compact mass.Until after sunrise the noisy autos kept a steady rush, dumping theirweary passengers into the street.

  By the time the land office opened in the morning, the line filled thestreet for half a block, and fully seventeen hundred persons werewaiting for a chance to enter the land office. An army of tired,swollen-eyed and dusty creatures they appeared, some of whom commenceddealing their positions in the line to late comers, having gotten intoline for speculation purposes only, and offered their places for fromten to twenty-five dollars, and in a few instances places near the doorsold for as high as fifty dollars.

  Under a ruling of the land officials, no filings were to be acceptedexcept from holders of original numbers until October first, and thisruling made it expedient for holders of relinquishments of early numbersto get into line early, as the six months allowed for establishingresidence expired for the first hundred original numbers on that day,and in cases where residence had not been properly established, the landwould be open to contest as soon as this period had expired. Manyhundreds had purchased relinquishments, hence the value placed on thepositions nearest the land-office door. It was three o'clock by the timethe line had passed through the land office and received their numbers.The land office closed at four o'clock for the day, which left but onehour for the protection of those who must offer their filings that dayor face the chances of a contest.

  Some had protected their claims by going into the land office before theruling was made and filing contests on the claims for which they heldrelinquishments, but most of the buyers had not thought of such a thing,and land grafters had complicated matters by filing contests on variousclaims for which they knew relinquishments would be offered and thenwithdrawing the contest, for a consideration. This practice met withstrong disapproval as most of the people had invested for the purpose ofmaking homes, and the laws made it impossible to change thecircumstances. These transactions had to be completed before the lineformed, however, as after the line formed no one could enter the landoffice to offer either filing, relinquishment or contest, without anumber issued by the officials. The line was full of such grafters, andas not more than one hundred filings could be taken in a day, it canreadily be seen that some of the relinquishment holders were in dangerof losing out through a contest offered before they had an opportunityto file.

  The crowds that flock to land openings, like other games of chance, aremade up in a measure of speculators, people who journey to one of theregistration points and make application for land, figuring that if theyshould draw an early number (that is, in the first five hundred) theywould file, no thought of making a home, but simply to sell therelinquishment for the largest possible price.

  When the filings were made, about sixty had dropped out of the firstfive hundred and even more out of the second five hundred, evidentlythinking they were not likely to get enough for the relinquishment topay them for their trouble and original investment, since it cost them afirst payment of two hundred and six dollars on the purchase price ofsix dollars per acre and a locating fee of twenty-five dollars, and insome cases the first expense reached three hundred dollars. If therelinquishment was not sold before the six months allowed forestablishing residence expired, it was necessary to establish residencemaking sufficient improvement for that purpose, or lose the moneyinvested.

  Out of the first four thousand numbers some two thousand had filed, andpractically half of this number had contracted to sell theirrelinquishments. The buyers had deposited the amount to be paid in somebank to the credit of the claimant, to be turned over when the purchaserhad secured filing on the land, the bank acting as agent between theparties to the transaction.

  I shall long remember October 1, 190-- in Megory--called the "MagicCity," and claiming a population of three thousand, but probably notexceeding one thousand, five hundred actual inhabitants, though filledwith transients from the beginning of the rush a year before, and had atno time during this period less than two thousand, five hundred personsin the town.

  My bride-to-be and my grandmother had received numbers 138 and 139 whichwould likely be called to file the second day, while my sister received170. On the afternoon of the second, Orlean, and my grandmother, who hadraised a family in the days of slavery, and was then about seventy-sevenyears of age, were called, and came out of the land office a few minuteslater with their blue papers, receipts for the two hundred six dollars,first payment and fees, which I had given the agent before they enteredthe land office. Their agent went into the land office with them to seethat they got a straight filing, which they received. My sister,however, was not called that day and the next day being Sunday, shewould not be called until the following Monday.

  The place my grandmother had filed on had been bought by a Megory schoolteacher, who had paid one thousand, four hundred dollars to a realestate dealer for the relinquishment of the same place. The claimant hadissued two relinquishments, which was easy enough to do, though therelinquishment accompanied by his land office receipt was the only bonafide one and we had the receipt. The teacher had stood in line the longnight through, behind my sister and then lost the place. The dealer whosold her the relinquishment was very angry, as he was to get six hundreddollars in the deal, giving the claimant only eight hundred. When Ilearned this and that the teacher had lost out I was very sorry for her,but it was a case of "first come first served," and many other mix-upsbetween buyers and dealers had occurred. I went to the teacher andapologized as best I could. She looked very pitiful as she told me howshe had taught so many years to save the money and her dreams had beenof nothing but securing a claim. Her eyes filled with tears and she benther head and began crying, and thus I left her.

  The next morning I sent Miss McCraline and Mrs. Ewis back to Chicago andproceeded to the claims of my sister and grandmother, which I found tobe good ones. I had whirled around them in an auto before I bought them,and though being satisfied that they laid well I had not examined thesoil or walked across them.

  In a week I had two frame hou
ses, ten by ten, built on them and withinanother week they had commenced living on them. Shortly after they movedonto the claims came one of the biggest snowstorms I had ever seen. Itsnowed for days and then came warm weather, thawing the snow, then moresnow. The corn in the fields had not been gathered nor was it allgathered before the following April.

  Most of the settlers in the new county were from twenty to fifty milesfrom Calias and winter caught many of them without fuel, and thesuffering from cold was intense. The snow continued to fall until it wasabout four feet deep on the level. Fortunately I had hauled enough coalto last my folks through the winter, and they had only to get toRitten, a distance of eight miles, to get food. I had just gathered twoloads out of a ninety-acre field. Being snowbound, with nothing to do, Iwatched the fight between Amro and Victor, with interest.