forestalling frauds[1] A statute passed by the Connecticut General Court in May, 1717, sought to prevent frauds in seizing lands from the Indians; it ordained that no Indian title was good unless it had the approval of the Connecticut Assem- bly.[2]
The preamble of another law, enacted in October, 1718, declared its purpose to be the preventing of unlawful entries of vacant lands and the resulting alienations. The act recited the prevailing frauds, “whereby many persons have been greatly defrauded, great disorders occasioned, divers quarrels excited." The preamble went on to say that, because of these frauds, "the orderly settlement of plantations [is] frustrated; which mischiefs are likely to continue, and increase, unless sufficient remedy be provided." The land in question, the act said, belonged to the government and company of the Colony of Connecticut, by grant from the crown of Great Britain; divers persons, under pretense of having a right and property in the lands, and without obtaining any legal conveyance from the corporation, had pre- sumed to enter upon the lands and improve or sell them. A money penalty was provided in the case of unlawful entry, and it was decreed that entry and possession did not make a title.[3]
The preamble of a fourth act, passed in October, 1722, reported that "some persons have pretended to purchase of Indians their rights as natives of many considerable tracts of land." All such deeds when secured without the consent of the Assembly were, it was announced, ipso facto, void in law. The lands, the act set forth, belonged to the colony; "vet under color of such deeds, persons unacquainted with the said laws may be imposed upon, deceived and greatly wronged.: A heavy specified money penalty was provided
