Part 7

"On the 7th of October, 1763, George III. issued a proclamation, providing for four new governments or colonies, namely: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada [the latter embracing 'the island of that name, together with the Grenadines, and the islands of Dominico, St. Vincent and 'Tobago'], and defining their boundaries. The limits of Quebec did not vary materially from those of the present province of that name, and those of East and West Florida comprised the present State of Florida and the country north of the Gulf of Mexico to the parallel of 31° latitude. It will be seen that no provision was made for the government of nine tenths of the new territory acquired by the Treaty of Paris, and the omission was not an oversight, but was intentional. The purpose was to reserve as crown lands the Northwest territory, the region north of the great lakes, and the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and to exclude them from settlement by the American colonies. They were left, for the time being, to the undisputed possession of the savage tribes. The king's 'loving subjects' were forbidden making purchases of land from the Indians, or forming any settlements 'westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the West and Northwest,' 'and all persons who have wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any lands' west of this limit were warned 'forthwith to remove themselves from such settlements.' Certain reasons for this policy were assigned in the proclamation, such as, 'preventing irregularities in the future, and that the Indians may be convinced of our justice,' etc.; but the real explanation appears in the Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, in 1772, on the petition of Thomas Walpole and others for a grant of land on the Ohio. The report was drawn by Lord Hillsborough, the president of the board. The report states: 'We take leave to remind your lordships of that principle which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed by his Majesty, immediately after the Treaty of Paris, viz.: the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance from the sea-coasts as that those settlements should lie within reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, … and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which was conceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colonies in a due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother country. And these we apprehend to have been the two capital objects of his Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763. … The great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend the commerce, navigation, and manufactures of this kingdom. … It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting-grounds, and that all colonizing does in its nature, and must in its consequences, operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce. … Let the Savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry-trade would decrease.' … Such in clear and specific terms was the cold and selfish policy which the British crown and its ministers habitually pursued towards the American colonies; and in a few years it changed loyalty into hate, and brought on the American Revolution."

_W. F. Poole, The West, from 1763 to 1783 (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 6, chapter 9)._

"The king's proclamation [of 1763] shows that, in the construction put upon the treaty by the crown authorities, the ceded territory was a new acquisition by conquest. The proclamation was the formal appropriation of it as the king's domain, embracing all the country west of the heads or sources of the rivers falling into the Atlantic."

_R. King, Ohio, chapter 5._

The text of the Proclamation of 1763 is in

_Force's American Archives, series 4, volume 1, page 172._

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1763-1764. Pontiac's War.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1765-1768. The Indian Treaties of German Flats and Fort Stanwix. Boundary arrangement with the Six Nations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1774. The territorial claims of Virginia. Lord Dunmore's War.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774; also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1774. Embraced in the Province of Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1778-1779. Its conquest from the British by the Virginian General Clark, and its organization under the jurisdiction of Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 CLARK'S CONQUEST.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1781-1786. Cession of the conflicting territorial claims of the States to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA:A. D. 1784. Jefferson's plan for new States.

"The condition of the northwestern territory had long been under the consideration of the House [the Congress of the Confederation]. Several committees had been appointed, and several schemes listened to, for laying out new States, but it was not till the middle of April [1784], that a resolution was finally reached. One plan was to divide the ceded and purchased lands into seventeen States. Eight of these were to lie between the banks of the Mississippi and a north and south line through the falls of the Ohio. Eight more were to be marked out between this line and a second one parallel to it, and passing through the western bank of the mouth of the Great Kanawha. What remained was to form the seventeenth State. But few supporters were found for the measure, and a committee, over which Jefferson presided, was ordered to place before Congress a new scheme of division. Chase and Howe assisted him; and the three devised a plan whereby the prairie-lands were to be parted out among ten new States. The divisions then marked down have utterly disappeared, and the names given to them become so forgotten that nine tenths of the population which has, in our time, covered the whole region with wealthy cities and prosperous villages, and turned it from a waste to a garden, have never in their lives heard the words pronounced. Some were borrowed from the Latin and some from the Greek; while others were Latinized forms of the names the Indians had given to the rivers. The States were to be, as far as possible, two degrees of latitude in width and arranged in three tiers. The Mississippi and a meridian through the falls of the Ohio included the western tier. The meridian through the falls of the Ohio and a second through the mouth of the Great Kanawha were the boundaries of the middle tier. Between this and the Pennsylvania West Line lay the third tier. That vast tract stretching from the 45th parallel of latitude to the Lake of the Woods, and dense with forests of pine, of hickory, and of oak, they called Sylvania. {2379} It was the northern State of the western tier. To the long tongue of land separating the water of Michigan from the waters of Erie and Huron they gave the name Cherronesus. A narrow strip, not more than two degrees of latitude in width, and stretching from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, was called Michigania. As marked down on their rude maps, Michigania lay under Sylvania, in the very heart of what is now Wisconsin. South of this to the 41st parallel of latitude was Assenisipia, a name derived from Assenisipi, the Indian title of the river now called the Rock. Eastward, along the shore of Lake Erie, the country was named Metropotamia. It took the name Mother of Rivers from the belief that within its boundary were the fountains of many rivers, the Muskingum, the two Miamis of Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, the Sandusky, and the Miami of the Lake. That part of Illinois between the 39th and 41st parallels was called, from the river which waters it, Illinoia. On to the east was Saratoga, and beyond this lay Washington, a broad and level tract shut in by the Ohio river, the waters of the lake, and the boundaries of Pennsylvania. Under Illinoia and Saratoga, and stretching along the Ohio, was the ninth State. Within its confines the waters of the Wabash, the Sawane, the Tanissee, the Illinois, and the Ohio were mingled with the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri. The committee therefore judged that a fitting name would be Polypotamia. Pelisipia was the tenth State. It lay to the east of Polypotamia, and was named from Pelisipi, a term the Cherokees often applied to the river Ohio. At the same time that the boundaries of the new States were defined, a code of laws was drawn up which should serve as a constitution for each State, till 20,000 free inhabitants acquired the right of self-government. The code was in no wise a remarkable performance, yet there were among its articles two which cannot be passed by in silence. One provided for the abolition of slavery after the year 1800. The other announced that no one holding an hereditary title should ever become a citizen of the new States. Each was struck out by the House. Yet each is deserving of notice. The one because it was the first attempt at a national condemnation of slavery, the other because it was a public expression of the dread with which our ancestors beheld the growth of the Society of the Cincinnati."

_J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

The report of Jefferson's committee "was recommitted to the same committee on the 17th of March, and a new one was submitted on the 22d of the same month. The second report agreed in substance with the first. The principal difference was the omission of the paragraph giving names to the States to be formed out of the Western Territory." After striking out the clauses prohibiting slavery after the year 1800 and denying citizenship to all persons holding hereditary titles, the Congress adopted the report, April 23, 1784. "Thus the substance of the report of Mr. Jefferson of a plan for the government of the Western Territory (without restrictions as to slavery) became a law, and remained so during 1784 to 1787, when these resolutions were repealed in terms by the passage of the ordinance for the government of the 'Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio.'"

_T. Donaldson, The Public Domain: its History, pages 148-149._

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1786-1788. The Ohio Company of Revolutionary soldiers and their land purchase. The settlement at Marietta.

"The Revolutionary War had hardly closed before thousands of the disbanded officers and soldiers were looking anxiously to the Western lands for new homes, or for means of repairing their shattered fortunes. In June, 1783, a strong memorial was sent to Congress asking a grant of the lands between the Ohio and Lake Erie. Those who lived in the South were fortunate in having immediate access to the lands of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the back parts of Georgia. The strife in Congress over the lands of the Northwest delayed the surveys and the bounties so long that the soldiers of the North almost lost hope." Finally, there "was a meeting of officers and soldiers, chiefly of the Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut lines, at Boston, March 1, 1786, when they formed a new Ohio Company for the purchase and settlement of Western lands, in shares of $1,000. General Putnam [Rufus], General Samuel H. Parsons, and the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, were made the directors, and selected for their purchase the lands on the Ohio River situated on both sides of the Muskingum, and immediately west of the Seven Ranges. The treasury board in those days were the commissioners of public lands, but with no powers to enter into absolute sales unless such were approved by Congress. Weeks and months were lost in waiting for a quorum of that body to assemble. This was effected on the 11th of July, and Dr. Cutler, deputed by his colleagues, was in attendance, but was constantly baffled in pursuing his objects. … The members were disposed to insert conditions which were not satisfactory to the Ohio Company. But the doctor carried his point by formally intimating that he should retire, and seek better terms with some of the States, which were offering their lands at half the price Congress was to receive. The grant to the Ohio Company, upon the terms proposed, was voted by Congress, and the contract formally signed October 27, 1787, by the treasury board, and by Dr. Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, as agents of the Ohio Company. Two companies, including surveyors, boat-builders, carpenters, smiths, farmers and laborers, 48 persons in all, with their outfit, were sent forward in the following months of December and January, under General Putnam as leader and superintendent. They united in February on the Youghiogheny River and constructed boats. … Embarking with their stores they descended the Ohio, and on the 7th of April, 1788, landed at the Muskingum. On the upper point, opposite Fort Harmar, they founded their town, which at Boston had first been named Adelphia. At the first meeting of the directors, held on the ground July 2d, the name of Marietta was adopted, in honor of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, and compounded of the first and last syllables."

_R. King, Ohio, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _W. P. and J. P. Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Reverend Manasseh Cutler, volume 1, chapters 4-7 and 9._

_C. M. Walker, History of Athens County, Ohio, chapter 2._

{2380}

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1787. The great Ordinance for its government. Perpetual Exclusion of Slavery.

"Congress at intervals discussed the future of this great domain, but for a while little progress was made except to establish that Congress could divide the territory as might seem best. Nathan Dane came forward with a motion for a committee to plan some temporary scheme of government. A committee on this point reported (May 10, 1786) that the number of States should be from two to five, to be admitted as States according to Jefferson's proposition, but the question of slavery in them was left open. Nothing definite was done till a committee—Johnson of Connecticut, Pinckney of South Carolina, Smith of New York, Dane of Massachusetts, and Henry of Maryland—reported on April 26, 1787, 'An ordinance for the government of the Western territory,' and after various amendments it was fairly transcribed for a third reading, May 10th. Further consideration was now delayed until July. It was at this point that Manasseh Cutler appeared in New York, commissioned to buy land for the Ohio Company in the region whose future was to be determined by this ordinance, and it was very likely, in part, by his influence that those features of the perfected ordinance as passed five days later, and which has given it its general fame, were introduced. On July 9th the bill was referred to a new committee, of which a majority were Southern men, Carrington of Virginia taking the chairmanship from Johnson; Dane and Smith were retained, but Richard Henry Lee and Kean of South Carolina supplanted Pinckney and Henry. This change was made to secure the Southern support; on the other hand, acquiescence in the wishes of Northern purchasers of lands was essential in any business outcome of the movement. 'Up to this time,' says Poole, 'there were no articles of compact in the bill, no anti-slavery clause, nothing about liberty of conscience or of the press, the right of habeas corpus, or of trial by jury, or the equal distribution of estates. The clause that, "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged," was not there.' These omissions were the New England ideas, which had long before this been engrafted on the Constitution of Massachusetts. This new committee reported the bill, embodying all these provisions except the anti-slavery clause, on the 11th, and the next day this and other amendments were made. On the 13th, but one voice was raised against the bill on its final passage, and that came from Yates of New York. Poole intimates that it was the promise of the governorship of the territory under the ordinance which induced St. Clair, then President of Congress, to lend it his countenance. The promise, if such it was, was fulfilled, and St. Clair became the first governor."

_J. Winsor and E. Channing, Territorial Acquisitions and Divisions (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 7, appendix)._

ALSO IN: _B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, chapter 15._

_W. F. Poole, Doctor Cutler and the Ordinance of 1787 (North American Review, April, 1876._

_W. P. and J. P. Cutler, Life of Manasseh Cutler, volume 1, chapter 8._

_J. P. Dunn, Jr., Indiana, chapter 5._

_T. Donaldson, The Public Domain, pages 149-159._

_J. A. Barrett, Evolution of the Ordinance of 1787 (University of Nebraska, Seminary Papers, 1891)._

_J. P. Dunn, editor, Slavery Petitions (Indiana Historical Society, volume 2, number 12)._

See, also, EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA.: A. D. 1785-1880.

The following is the text of the "Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio," commonly known as the "Ordinance of 1787":