Morten St George Theory

[-JKP-]

In the Middle Ages, the only possessions a lot of people had was clothing off their backs. Many of them had little else.

Even up until the 1950s, people emigrated to North America with no possessions at all other than the clothes on their backs and maybe one very small suitcase. Just enough money to last a couple of weeks to try to find work once they go to their destinations. This has changed. Now people require a certain level of money in order to qualify for immigration, but in the early days it was different.

As late as the 1800s, you could qualify to own hundreds of acres of land just by signing a form at the local office and then building a dwelling and logging 5 acres around the home to demonstrate that you had "developed" the land and were capable of managing it.

Some people didn't even build a real dwelling at first. What they did was chop down a very large tree (trees were so large in those days, you couldn't cut them at the base, you had to saw them about 8 feet above the ground to avoid the giant roots) and then burn out the center and they called that home until they were sufficiently established to build a real house.