Adventures in land ownership

[shikamaru]

I was told that the federal government "owned" the land after the Cherokee removal via the trail of tears.
A land sale office supposedly existed in Cleveland Tennessee where mining companies could buy land from the federal government and record their claims.
There were neither land grants nor land patents, only land sales, according to a

http://www.archives.gov/research/land/index.html

Wow! I didn't know this ...

For land records in the remaining 20 states that were never part of the original public domain, check the State Archives for that particular state. This includes the original 13 colonies, plus Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia.

This looks interesting: http://publicrecords.onlinesearches....-and-Deeds.htm

You may want to investigate as to what the highest form of title is in Tennessee as well as get copies of the treaties that have bearing on Tennessee.

This will be important too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Territory