What happened to the promise of free land offered to enlisted soldiers of the Continental Army?

Answer 1

Some were able to collect. The five present states of the "Old Northwest" - Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were for a time referred to as the "Western Reserve", and the land was intended to be awarded to Continental soldiers as promised. To that end the surveying of the land began in 1796 in Ohio, a process that went on continuously until all the public land in the lower 48 was at last surveyed in the 1920s. This surveying, by "section" (one square mile) within townships, and "quarter sections" (160 acres, a square quarter of a mile) is the reason the map of the US from Ohio westward has such a regular, square appearance. Former soldiers were eligible to file their claim to these parcels in an amount of acreage depending on factors related to their service. There were also state land bounties, promised by the various states which had claims to western lands to stimulate enlistment, and perhaps more of these claims were made good, as the man had only to move west within his home state to get to that land. The western lands became a contentious and divisive issue during Washington's presidency, as Hamilton's faction wanted the states to cede their claims to western land to the Federal government, in return for which the Federal government would assume the debts the states had incurred to help finance the Revolution. But some states, such as Virginia, had already taxed their citizens and paid most of this debt, while other states had done nothing to pay their debts. So Virginia was asked to give up its sizable claim to western land, in return for paying debts already paid, and for the chance to tax its people some more to help pay the debts of states which had not bothered to even try to pay their own obligations. Moreover, some states, such as South Carolina, Delaware and New Jersey had no claims to any western lands, and so were not giving up anything in return for getting their debts paid. But Hamilton's faction wound up carrying the day, the lands were ceded to the Federal government, and the debts assumed. Some veterans of course never tried to take advantage of the promised land, because they did not want to move to where the land was being made available.