ing energy
was shown by the settlers, several effective campaigns being carried on,
and by the close of 1814 the war was closed in Illinois.(261)

Extinction of Indian titles to land was retarded by the war and also by
the policy of the United States, which was expressed by Secretary of War
Crawford, in 1816, as follows: "The determination to purchase land only
when demanded for settlement will form the settled policy of the
Government. Experience has sufficiently proven that our population will
spread over any cession, however extensive, before it can be brought into
market, and before there is any regular and steady demand for settlement,
thereby increasing the difficulty of protection, embarrassing the
Government by broils with the natives, and rendering the execution of the
laws regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes utterly
impracticable."(262) Some progress, however, was made in extinguishing
Indian titles during the territorial period after the close of the war. In
1816, several tribes confirmed the cession of 1804 of land lying south of
an east and west line passing through the southern point of Lake Michigan,
and ceded a route for an Illinois-Michigan canal.(263) At Edwardsville, on
September 25, 1818, the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Michigamia, Cahokia, and
Tamarois ceded a tract comprising most of southern and much of central
Illinois.(264) The significance of this cession would have been immense
had it not been that it was made by weak tribes, while the powerful
Kickapoo still claimed and held all that part of the ceded tract lying
north of the parallel of 39 deg.--a little to the north of the mouth of the
Illinois river. This Kickapoo claim included the fertile and already
famous Sangamon country, in which the state capital was eventually to be
located, and squatters were pressing hard upon the Indian frontier, yet
the Indians still held the land when Illinois became a state.

During the territorial period, Illinois gained the long-sought right of
preemption; the French claims ceased to retard settlement; some progress
was made in the extinction of Indian titles, and the sale of public land
was begun. The new state was to find the Indian question a pressing one,
and some changes in the land system were yet desired, but the crucial
point was passed.

II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.

The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois,
during the first stage of