CHAPTER III LAND CESSIONS OF THE STATES THE treaty of peace in 1783 defined the boundaries of the new nations but the distribution of the unappropriated portion of the national domain among several States formed one of the most serious questions with which the confederation had to deal. The section in controversy was that part of the country bounded on the west by the Mississippi and extending to the east as far as the western settlements of the States. Every State claimed all the land which had come to it by charter, except that the sea-to-sea claims were now limited on the west by Mississippi River. The liberality of the English kings in giving away what had cost them nothing and the carelessness with which the lines between the colonies were defined was now to cause much trouble. The important part of the original grant was, in all cases, on or near the sea coast. At the time the charters were granted, no one anticipated territorial conflicts in the far interior, for the time seemed remote when these transmountain districts would be needed for settlement. The Massachusetts grant was sixty miles wide along the coast and extended through to the Pacific. The Connecticut charter gave an equally liberal western extension. Both were subsequently modified by royal grants of land comprised within their limits. After the conquest of New Amsterdam by the English, Charles II. bestowed this territory upon his brother, the Duke of York. This cession was recognized by the two eastern States and they relinquished their claim to what is now eastern New York, but still asserted their ownership to the country to the west. Massachusetts considered as its territory the southern parts of what were later the States of Michigan and Wisconsin, while Connecticut held that northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were a part of its territory, and also claimed the valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. This latter territory was, however, in 1782, adjudged to Pennsylvania. The northern and southern boundaries of the lands claimed by Massachusetts and Connecticut were parallel lines but their nearest neighbor in the west, Virginia, was not content with any such narrow limits. The Virginian charter was drawn up in a way that was conveniently ambiguous for that State, though somewhat uncomfortable for her neighbors. The grant of 1609 gave to Virginia “all those lands, countries and territories situate, lying and being in that part of America called Virginia, from the point of land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the seaboard to the northward 200 miles, and from the said Point or Cape Comfort all along the seashore to the southward 200 miles; and all that space and circuit of land lying on the seacoast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." This was a generous grant under any interpretation of the terms, but the extent of territory included in it would vary greatly according to the understanding of the words "west and northwest." If the southern line extended west and the northern line northwest, then the sides of the grant would form a trapezium, the eastern and western lines being on the Atlantic and the Pacific shores. But if the northern line extended directly west and the southern line northwest, the limits of the colony would be formed by a triangle, with one angle somewhere in the Alleghany Mountains. With this second interpretation, Virginia would have a territory of about the size of Pennsylvania, but if the first were allowed there would belong to it practically all the northwest. Naturally Virginia took the large view, but the other States understood the charter to give the smaller territory. But this was not all the claim that Virginia had. George Rogers Clark had conquered the northwest under commission of the Virginian government and the money for the expedition had been paid by Virginia. Besides this, there were flourishing settlements from Virginia already established in the disputed territory. So there was the triple claim of charter right, conquest, and settlement, and we cannot wonder that Virginia held tenaciously to this splendid western empire. North and South Carolina claimed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Georgia's claim was equally large but unsubstantial. This back country was in dispute between the Spaniards and the Indians, so that Oglethorpe's new and turbulent colony had little influence there. North Carolina's claim included the present State of Tennessee, and in addition to its charter claims it could point to the settlements already made by Carolinians on the land claimed by the State and to the part which these western mountaineers had taken in defending this land during the Revolution. At the time when the colonies organized a Federal government there were then these six States: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, claiming a western extension bounded by the Mississippi. Of the remaining colonies, New York had a large, but illfounded, claim as the heir of the Iroquois. The land affected by this claim was in the northwest and had been at one time under the nominal control of the Iroquois; New York acquired this by treaty. All the Indians in the region between Lake Erie and the Cumberland Mountains had been tributary to this powerful tribe, and so New York asserted control of their lands also. This claim was not so good as that of Virginia, and it came in conflict with the territorial pretensions of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. There remained New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, which by |