RARE Pamphlet / Booklet
Regulations
relating to
BOUNTY LAND
with Signed letter from James H. Baker
1871
For offer, an interesting old historical booklet / pamphlet! Fresh from a prominent estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOTa Reproduction - Guaranteed !! I could not locate a copy of this for sale anywhere - quite scarce. title continues - ... with statutes issued by the Commissioner of Pensions. Washington : GPO, 1871. 23 p., purple wraps. Letter tipped in front from Commissioner James H Baker, who was a Brig General, Civil War, Secretary of State in Ohio and Minnesota, etc. Signature on letter looks to be a stamp. In good to very good condition. Light crease marks. Please seephotos for all details. If you collect 19thcentury American print history, Americana, military related, etc.this is a treasureyou will not see again!Add this to your book library, orpaper/ ephemera collection. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 2365
James Heaton Baker was a Republican politician who was Ohio Secretary of State from 1856 to 1858, Minnesota Secretary of State, 1860–1862, and served in the American Civil War.
Life
James H. Baker was born May 6, 1829, in Monroe, Butler County, Ohio. He was educated in common schools, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University. He became a teacher, and had charge of the Female Seminary at Richmond, Indiana. In 1853 he purchased the Scioto Gazette in Chillicothe, Ohio. In 1855 he was elected to a single term as Ohio Secretary of State.[1] Later in life, he would be Minnesota Secretary of State 1860–1862.
During the American Civil War, Baker served as colonel of the 10th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry in the Union Army in 1862–1863.[2] He was appointed Provost Marshal for the Department of Missouri, and served till the close of the war.[1] He was mustered out of the volunteers on October 21, 1865.[2] In recognition of Bakers service, on January 13, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Baker for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general to rank from March 13, 1865, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment on March 12, 1866.[3]
After the war, Baker was appointed Register of Public Lands at the Boonville, Missouri Federal Land Office, which he performed for two years. He then retired to a farm in Minnesota, and was appointed Commissioner of Pensions by President Grant from 1871 to 1875.[1]
Baker died at Mankato, Minnesota, May 25, 1913.[4] He is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Mankato.[2]
ames H. Baker, circa 1908
11th Ohio Secretary of State
In office
January 14, 1856 – January 11, 1858
GovernorSalmon P. Chase
Preceded byWilliam Trevitt
Succeeded byAddison P. Russell
2nd Minnesota Secretary of State
In office
1860–1862
GovernorAlexander Ramsey
Preceded byFrancis Baasen
Succeeded byDavid Blakeley
Personal details
BornMay 6, 1829
Monroe, Ohio
DiedMay 25, 1913 (aged 84)
Mankato, Minnesota
Resting placeGlenwood Cemetery, Mankato
Political partyRepublican
Alma materOhio Wesleyan University
Military service
AllegianceUnion Army
Years of service1862-1864
RankColonel
Brevet Brigadier General
Unit10th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is a federal executive department of the U.S. government. It is responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, territorial affairs, and insular areas of the United States, as well as programs related to historic preservation. About 75% of federal public land is managed by the department, with most of the remainder managed by the United States Department of Agricultures United States Forest Service.[3] The department was created on March 3, 1849.
The department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Interior, who is a member of the Cabinet of the president. The current secretary is David Bernhardt, who previously served in the department as deputy secretary. The inspector general position is currently held by Mark Greenblatt.
Despite its name, the Department of the Interior has a different role from that of the interior ministries of other nations, which are usually responsible for police matters and internal security. In the United States, national security and immigration functions are performed by the Department of Homeland Security primarily and the Department of Justice secondarily.
The Department of the Interior has often been humorously called "The Department of Everything Else" because of its broad range of responsibilities.[4]
History
Formation of the department
A department for domestic concern was first considered by the 1st United States Congress in 1789, but those duties were placed in the Department of State. The idea of a separate domestic department continued to percolate for a half-century and was supported by presidents from James Madison to James Polk. The 1846–48 Mexican–American War gave the proposal new steam as the responsibilities of the federal government grew. Polks Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, became a vocal champion of creating the new department.[citation needed]
In 1849, Walker stated in his annual report that several federal offices were placed in departments with which they had little to do. He noted that the General Land Office had little to do with the Treasury and also highlighted the Indian Affairs office, part of the Department of War, and the Patent Office, part of the Department of State. Walker argued that these and other bureaus should be brought together in a new Department of the Interior.[citation needed] A bill authorizing its creation of the department passed the House of Representatives on February 15, 1849, and spent just over two weeks in the Senate. The department was established on March 3, 1849 (9 Stat. 395), the eve of President Zachary Taylors inauguration, when the Senate voted 31 to 25 to create the department. Its passage was delayed by Democrats in Congress who were reluctant to create more patronage posts for the incoming Whig administration to fill. The first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing.
Department responsibilities
As of mid-2004, the department managed 507 million acres (2,050,000 km2) of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States. It manages 476 dams and 348 reservoirs through the Bureau of Reclamation, 410 national parks, monuments, seashore sites, etc. through the National Park Service, and 544 national wildlife refuges through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Several of the domestic concerns the department originally dealt with were gradually transferred to other departments. For example, the Department of Interior was responsible for water pollution control prior to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.[5] Other agencies became separate departments, such as the Bureau of Agriculture, which later became the Department of Agriculture. However, land and natural resource management, American Indian affairs, wildlife conservation, and territorial affairs remain the responsibilities of the Department of the Interior. The Department in January 2020 grounded its fleet of 810 DJI drones used to monitor wildlife and infrastructure over security concerns.[6]
American Indians
Within the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs handles some federal relations with Native Americans, while others are handled by the Office of Special Trustee. The current acting assistant secretary for Indian affairs is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin.
The department has been the subject of disputes over proper accounting for Native American Trusts set up to track the income and distribution of monies that are generated by the trust and specific Native American lands, which the government leases for fees to companies that extract oil, timber, minerals, and other resources. Several cases have sought an accounting of such funds from departments within the Interior and Treasury (such as the Minerals Management Service), in what has been a 15-year-old lawsuit. Some Native American nations have also sued the government over water-rights issues and their treaties with the US. In 2010 Congress passed the Claims Settlement Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-291), which provided $3.4 billion for the settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar class-action trust case and four Native American water rights cases.[7]
The $3.4 billion will be placed in a still-to-be-selected bank and $1.4 billion will go to individuals, mostly in the form of checks ranging from $500 to $1,500. A small group, such as members of the Osage tribe who benefit from huge Oklahoma oil revenues, will get far more, based on a formula incorporating their 10 highest years of income between 1985 and 2009. As important, $2 billion will be used to buy trust land from Native American owners at fair market prices, with the government finally returning the land to tribes. Nobody can be forced to sell.[8]
On December 17, 2020 Deb Haaland, U.S. Representative from New Mexico, was nominated by President-elect Joseph R. Biden to become the first Native American to lead a cabinet level agency as U.S. Secretary of the Interior [9].
The Bureau of Pensions was an agency of the federal government of the United States which existed from 1832 to 1930. It originally administered pensions solely for military personnel. Pension duties were transferred to the United States Department of the Interior in 1849. The death of many pensioners in the early 1900s greatly reduced the agencys workload. The agency closed in 1930 when its duties were transferred to the Veterans Administration.
History
The first government pensions in American history were awarded to naval officers in 1799. Naval pensions were administered by a commission composed of the Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Army from 1799 to 1832. The commission dissolved in 1832, and the Secretary of the Navy administered the pension plan alone until 1840. In 1828, Congress enacted legislation granting pensions to all remaining American Revolutionary War veterans. These pensions were administered by the Secretary of the Treasury.[1] In 1833, Congress created a "Commissioner of Pensions" within the War Department, and transferred the Treasurys pension function to this new office.[2]
Congress created the Department of the Interior in 1849, and transferred the Commissioner of Pensions office to it. Renamed the Bureau of Pensions, the agency had two duties: Assess and either approve or deny claims, and to pay benefits.[2] The office moved into the new Patent Office Building, where it stayed for 38 years.[3] The massive increase in pension processing required by the Civil War led to the construction of a massive, new Pension Bureau Building. The Bureau of Pensions moved into this structure in 1887.[4]
With the death of many Civil War veterans beginning in the early 1900s (more than 500,000 had died between 1900 and 1920, requiring a 50 percent reduction in bureau staff), the Bureau of Pensions no longer needed the vast space of the Pension Bureau Building. The agency moved into the Interior Building in early 1926.[5]
On July 21, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed an executive order merging the Bureau of Pensions, Veterans Bureau, and Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers into a single Veterans Administration. This ended the Bureau of Pensions existence as a federal agency.[6]
A bounty (from Latin bonitās, goodness) is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money. By definition, they can be retracted at any time by whoever issued them. Two modern examples of bounties are the ones placed for the capture of Saddam Hussein and his sons by the United States government[1] and Microsofts bounty for computer virus creators.[2] Those who make a living by pursuing bounties are known as bounty hunters.
Examples
Historical examples
Written promises of reward for the capture of or information regarding criminals go back to at least the first-century Roman Empire. Graffiti from Pompeii, a Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, contained this message:
A copper pot went missing from my shop. Anyone who returns it to me will be given 65 bronze coins (sestertii). Twenty more will be given for information leading to the capture of the thief.[3]
A bounty system was used in the American Civil War as an incentive to increase enlistments. Another bounty system was used in New South Wales to increase the number of immigrants from 1832.[4]
£20 reward offered for information in Kidderminster house burglary, 1816.
Bounties were sometimes paid as rewards for killing Native Americans. In 1862, a farmer received a bounty for shooting Taoyateduta (Little Crow). In 1856, Governor Isaac Stevens put a bounty on the head of Indians from eastern Washington, for ordinary Indians and for a "chief". A western Washington Indian, Patkanim, chief of the Snohomish, obligingly provided a great many heads, until the territorial auditor put a stop to the practice due to the dubious origins of the deceased.[citation needed]
In Australia in 1824, a bounty of 500 acres (200 ha) of land was offered for capturing alive the Wiradjuri warrior Windradyne, the leader of the Aboriginal resistance movement in the Bathurst Wars. A week after the bounty was offered, the word "alive" was dropped from the reward notices, but he was neither captured nor betrayed by his people.[5]
Bounties have been offered on animals deemed undesirable by particular governments or corporations. In Tasmania, the thylacine was relentlessly hunted to extinction based on such schemes. Gray wolves, too, were extirpated from much of the present United States by bounty hunters. An example of the legal sanction granted can be found in a Massachusetts Bay Colony law dated May 7, 1662: "This Court doth Order, as an encouragement to persons to destroy Woolves, That henceforth every person killing any Woolf, shall be allowed out of the Treasury of that County where such woolf was slain, Twenty shillings, and by the Town Ten shillings, and by the County Treasurer Ten shillings: which the Constable of each Town (on the sight of the ears of such Woolves being cut off) shall pay out of the next County rate, which the Treasurer shall allow."[6]
17th-century examples
Since after the Restoration, criminality was increasing, the dissatisfaction with the penal system led to the implementation of the rewards. £10 were promised to anyone who gave information about a robber or burglar and a pardon was also granted to convicts able to provide evidence against their accomplices.[7] Between 1660 and 1692, Parliament introduced a series of statutes that offered rewards up to £40. Under William III, the rewards became a systematic element in the fight against crime, an alternative to erase the most dangerous threats to the community. The first example of permanent reward was in 1692, when £40 (together with the offenders horse, arms, and money) were offered for the discovery and the conviction of offenders who committed serious property crimes - highway robbery, burglary and housebreaking, coining, and other offences.[8] The trial judges became fundamental to the administration of the rewards system because the statutes put them in charge of apportioning the reward among the persons who claimed to have participated in procuring the conviction. As it was written in the legislation of 1692, "...in case any Dispute shall happen to arise between the persons so apprehending any the said Thieves and Robbers touching their right and title to the said Reward that then the said Judge or Justices so respectively certifying as aforesaid shall in and by their said Certificate direct and appoint the said Reward to be paid unto and amongst the Parties claimeing the same in such share and proportions as to the said Judge or Justices shall seem just and reasonable"[9]
18th-century examples
In the 18th century, the English government episodically offered rewards by proclamation; in 1720, a royal proclamation offered £100 for the unmasking of murderers or highway robbers, sometimes worth as much as £100. When a statutory reward overlapped a proclamation, prosecuting or convicting of a highway robber could be worth £140 a head (£100 under proclamation, £40 by statute), £240 for a pair or £420 for a three-person group. These were huge sums at the time when an artisan earned about £20 and a labourer less than £15 per year.[10] Supplementary reward was part of the administration of the law for six years, then with the death of George I, it came to an end. After two years, in February 1728, a new proclamation reinstated the £100 reward by respecting the original terms. Private parties were also free to offer rewards in addition to rewards by proclamations, then this practice was taken up by governmental departments and local authorities.[11] In 1716, Robert Griffith was indicted for stealing from Thomas Brooks, one silver watch, value £51, and one gold watch, value £18, from Mary Smith. She offered a reward of £15 to anyone who gave information about the robber. The reward was received by Mr. Holder, after he brought Mrs. Smith the silver watch that was stolen.[12] In 1732, Henry Carey offered a reward of 2 guineas for the securing of Richard Marshall, and three more for his conviction. Marshall, together with Mary Horsenail and Amy Mason, were indicted for breaking and entering the house of Mr. Carey in Dorrington-street. They were also indicted for robbery. Marshall was secured by Mr. Parker, that received the 2-guinea reward as promised. Australian bushranger "Ned Kelly" held the most wanted bounty of the 1800s, for £8000; Ned was wanted dead or alive.[13]
Rewards and thief-takers
In creating incentives to overcome criminality, the rewards system risked overincentivizing. This led to the development of the profession of thief-taker. They were part of the criminal underworld, but they were seen as offering an advantageous service to the state.[14] Victims of theft in London, facilitated by the circulation of newspapers, took advantage of advertising to recover their stolen goods. They offered a reward “with no questions asked”.[15] Since prosecutors usually resorted to the legal system, they had to pay for the proceedings at the Old Bailey; though the offender was convicted, they often lost their goods forever. For this reason, prosecutors decided to bypass the legal system, recovering their goods by resorting to advertising.[16] Thief-takers were the perfect intermediates between victims and offenders and received a portion of the reward offered. Jonathan Wild, a prominent figure of the underworld, successfully combined thief-taking with the activity of simplifying the return of stolen goods by paying rewards to the thieves.[17] In the early 1720s, he controlled London's underworld, but his activity became a threat to the community and the integrity of the penal system. In 1725, Wild was accused of stealing 50 yards (46 m) of lace, valued at £40, from the shop of a blind woman, Catherine Statham. He admitted accepting a reward of 10 guineas from Mrs. Statham for helping her to recover the stolen lace. He was acquitted of the first charge but with Mrs. Stathams evidence presented against him on the second charge he was convicted and sentenced to death.[18]
Fictional representations
The figure of Jonathan Wild inspired the character of Mr. Peachum in The Beggars Opera, a satirical ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay. Peachum controls a large group of thieves, and is connected to the government and courts. Because of these connections, he can decide whether to allow a captured criminal to be hanged (in that case he receives a reward) or to be released. In scene II, Peachum gives evidence against another member of his gang, Tom Gagg, in exchange for a reward of £40. Then in scene IV, Mrs. Peachum, Peachum's wife, enters and inquires about Bob Booty, her favorite member of the gang. Peachum will accept a £40 reward for allowing Bob to be hanged.[19]
21st-century examples
The majority of prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay detainment camp were handed over by bounty hunters.[20]
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston offered a $5 million reward for the return, in good condition, of the 13 works of art taken from its galleries in March 1990.[21]
Other uses
Mathematics
The term "bounty" is used in mathematics to refer to a reward offered to any person willing to take on an open problem. Bounties are offered for solving a particular math problem – ranging from small lemmas that graduate students solve in their spare time to some of the worlds hardest math problems. Paul Erdős was famous for offering mathematical bounties.[22]
Economics
In economics the term “bounty” has often been used in the sense of a negative tax.[23]
Open-source software
In the computer science and open-source community, bounty refers to a reward offered to any person or project willing to solve open problems, for instance, implementing a feature or finding a bug in an open-source software program (open-source bounty). For instance, the Mozilla Foundation offers bounties for security bug hunting.[24][25] Bounty-driven development is one of the business models for open-source software.
Poker
In poker tournaments, a bounty prize refers to a fixed sum of money "on each players head" that is awarded to whomever knocks that player out of the tournament by winning all their chips.[clarification needed]
Motorsport
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Often, if a driver or team has won multiple consecutive races, a race track or sanctioning body will establish a bounty on a team. This practice is common on local short tracks, especially if a driver has won three consecutive weeks or more. The bounty often is increased for every race the offending driver or team continues to win, and is claimed upon another driver or team ending that winning streak. After Chip Ganassi Racing won six consecutive Rolex Sports Car Series races, Grand American Road Racing Association established a bounty to the team that beats Ganassi. On May 14, 2011, Action Express Racing defeated Ganassi, and claimed the bounty. After Kyle Busch won six consecutive NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races over a two-season span, driver Kevin Harvick and series sponsor Camping World Holdings placed a $100,000 bounty to a full-time Cup Series driver that defeats Busch in one of the remaining four races Busch is eligible to participate. Numerous Cup Series drivers announced plans to enter the $100,000 bounty races. On the first race of the four on May 26, 2020, Chase Elliott claimed the bounty in defeating Busch at the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. Harvick and Camping World will donate the bounty to relief efforts. A separate bounty had been planned by Halmar International, a sponsor on a Kyle Busch Motorsports truck, for $50,000 if a Truck Series regular defeated Busch, but that was cancelled because the sponsor used the money for relief efforts.
American football
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Bounties, referring to bonuses for in-game performance, are officially banned by the National Football League, the sports dominant professional league. Despite this, bounties have had a significant history within the sport. Notable examples include a 1989 game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles that became known as the Bounty Bowl, and a bounty scheme organized by players and coaches with the New Orleans Saints that was uncovered in 2012, leading to substantial penalties.
Recruitment
Bounty is also used to refer to bonus payments made to staff on recruitment (or for recommending others for recruitment). This practice used to be common in the military (it was standard practice in the British Army during the 19th century),[26] but has since been largely phased out, only to become relatively widespread amongst civilian employers. Many reserve armed forces also pay a retention "bounty" to personnel who meet or exceed participation and training thresholds.[27]
Crowd-funded
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The company weBounty, Inc. offers users the ability to create or pledge to bounties across a variety of categories.
See also
Bounty jumper
BountySource
Contract killing
