Land Purchase Act (1875)
| Land Purchase Act, 1875 | |
|---|---|
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| Citation | 38th Victoria, Cap. 32 |
| Territorial extent | Prince Edward Island |
| Enacted by | General Assembly of Prince Edward Island |
| Date enacted | June 30, 1875 |
The Land Purchase Act, 1875 (38th Victoria, Cap. 32) was a statute in Prince Edward Island, Canada passed by the General Assembly of Prince Edward Island in 1875. Much of the land in the province was owned by absentee landlords, and the objective of the statute was to force the landlords to sell their estates to the provincial government, which would in turn sell the land at lower prices to local farmers.
The statute transformed land ownership in the province. The issues that were ultimately addressed by the legislation represented a key element in the negotiations that led to Prince Edward Island's entry into Confederation in 1873. William Buell Richards, the first Chief Justice of Canada, wrote that the Land Purchase Act was to be "viewed not as ordinary legislation, but as the settling of an important question of great moment to the community, and in principle like the abolition of the Seigniorial tenure in Lower Canada and the settling of the land question in Ireland. [...] The great object of the Statute seems to have been to convert the leasehold tenures into freehold estates, a matter of very great importance, and one which, if not settled, would be likely to affect the peace as well as the prosperity of the province."
In the mid 18th-century, Prince Edward Island was divided into 67 lots, and these lots were allocated to supporters of King George III by means of a lottery in 1767. As a result, most of the property on the island was owned by absentee landlords in England, many of whom refused to pay local taxes in the colony, causing resentment among the colony's tenant farmers.
The colonial government first attempted to address the "land question" by enacting the Quit Rent Act in 1774 in order to force the absentee landowners to pay quit rent to help fund local administration and infrastructure. When Governor Walter Patterson attempted in 1771 to seize the properties of owners who had not paid their rents, the Crown removed Patterson from office and overturned his actions.
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