Scoped number · Episodes 3
Continental land bounty for wartime enlistment
100 acres
- Scope
- The land promised to qualifying noncommissioned officers and soldiers who enlisted to serve during the war, as discussed by Congress on October 30, 1776.
- Uncertainty
- The resolution documents a promise and policy dispute, not universal receipt, identical eligibility across later measures, or the eventual location and quality of awarded land.
- Interpretation
- The number turns military service into a material and intergovernmental bargain and shows Congress pledging future resources it did not yet fully control.
Congress’s printed journal, pages 912–913, pairs the acreage with a twenty-dollar cash bounty and explicitly treats continental faith as binding on states.