The Southern practice was called the "metes and bounds" system. The New England practice was to survey land in ordered blocks before settlement, then sell the blocks. Two systems of land survey existed in the early 1780s, one type in New England and the other in the South. The first issue the committee had to decide was how to survey, or determine the exact measurements of, the western land. Jefferson had the foresight and scientific knowledge to create a practical western land policy. Virginian Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was appointed chairman of the committee for establishing a land policy. The money from sale of the lands would be used to help pay off the national debt, which had accumulated during the American Revolution (1775–83). Congress directed that a committee be formed to establish how western lands were to be divided and sold. When Virginia completed the cession, or turning over, of its western land claims in 1784 (see first excerpt of this chapter), Congress knew it was only a matter of time before other states holding claims would do the same. Issued on May 20, 1785, by the Continental Congress Published in Documents of American History, edited by Henry S.
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