at Kaskaskia to sell so much of the land ceded by the
treaty of Vincennes (August, 1803) as was not claimed by any other tribe
than those represented in the cession. The register and the receiver of
public moneys of these respective districts were to be commissioners to
settle private land claims. Evidences of claims should be filed before
January 1, 1805, and after the adjustment of claims the public lands
should be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Two dollars per acre was
to be the minimum price; no land should be sold in less than
quarter-sections, except fractional portions caused by irregularities in
topography or survey, and lands unsold after the auction might be sold at
private sale. Although this act provided for the sale of public lands in
Illinois after private claims should have been satisfied, and directed
that such claims should be filed not later than January 1, 1805, Congress
repeatedly extended the time for the filing of claims, and ten years after
the passage of this act there were still unsatisfied claims.(173) Not
until 1814 did sales of public land begin in Illinois. The delay retarded
immigration of that class which would have made the most desirable
citizens.

By the treaty of St. Louis, November 3, 1804, the Sauk and Foxes ceded
that part of Illinois west of the Illinois and Fox rivers. Black Hawk, the
principal chief of the Sauk, did not sign the treaty.(174) By the treaty
of Vincennes, 1805, the Piankashaws ceded a tract lying between the lower
Wabash and its western watershed.(175) No more Indian titles to land in
Illinois were extinguished, and no public land was sold in Illinois until
after that part of the country became a separate territory.

Early in 1806, there came to Congress from Illinois a petition which
betrayed the anxiety of the French settlers, and of the Americans who had
bought French claims, lest the peculiar shape of their holdings should be
disturbed by the orderly system of government surveys. The petitioners
asked that a line might be run from a point north of Cahokia to an
unspecified river south of Kaskaskia, in such a manner as to include all
settlements between the two points, and that the land so included be
exempt from the mode of survey and terms of sale of other public lands of
the United States. The petition was apparently not reported upon, but a
detailed map of the region referred to shows that the holdings were left
in their bewildering complexity.(176)