The New Western Colony Schemes: a Preview of the United States Territorial System

The New Western Colony Schemes: A Preview of the United States Territorial System

Chad J. Wox.niak*

The history of the United States territorial sxstem properly begins several decades before the American Revolution. Many of the ideas ultimately incorporated into the American territorial system first found expression, in one form or another, some time during the half century or so before 1775. In this period developments took place illustrative as antecedents of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created the United States territorial system, and of the companion Land Ordinance of 1785, which established the characteristic Ameri- can rectangular land survey system. These antecedents were encom- passed in the plans for settlement west of the Appalachians in colonial times and in the schemes for new British colonies in the interior of North America. While none of the new colony schemes was ever realized, their sponsors put forth some of the initial suggestions of elements in the later plan of the territorial system. Their ideas and plans were known and carefully evaluated by the Continental Con- gress during and after the Revo1ution.l Since they represented the first proposed departure from the old pattern of expansion westward by the original colonies2 and the first indigenously American deliberations upon new colonization, the new colony ventures merit consideration as a phase of the ideological growth and shaping of the territorial system and of America constitutionalism. Upon examination, the proposals and schemes for new western settlement in the late colonial period exhibit many tendencies and philo- sophies later expressed again in the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787.

* Chad J. Wozniak is assistant professor of history, University of Wisconsin- Parkside, Kenosha. 1 In the Papers of the Continental Congress (National Archives, Washington, D.C.), are numerous memorials and other documents relating to the various new colony proposals. See, for example, those relating to the Vandalia colony project, the best known and most nearly successful, ibid., Item 41, X, 500ff. zFor the purposes of this essay, two kinds of westward expansion in colonial America may be noted: peripheral expansion into unoccupied areas by the existing colonies without central direction from the imperial authorities : and unitary expansion, under such central direction, through the creation of new colonies. Peripheral expansion was the only kind actually undertaken in the period considered here, but the proposals for new western colonies anticlpated a system of unitary exDansion such as was later provided in the territorial scheme of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. One of the factors favoring unitary expansion was the distance of the newly annexed parts of the existing colonies from their centers of government and commerce. Another was their isolation either across natural barriers, such as the Appalachians, or the intervening territory of another colony, as in the case of the Wyoming Valley and Connecticut (see pp. 289-90). 284 Indiana Magazine of History

Reference Map for New W estem Colony Projects

Map prepared by Chad J. Wozniak New Western Colony Schemes 285 The proposals for new western colonies originated with the accel- erated growth of English America in the decades immediately preceding the French and Indian War (1754-1760). During this time almost all of the lands east of the Appalachian divide were either settled or owned by speculators. The Indian traders’ frontier also advanced so far that by the middle of the 1740s it had penetrated into the older sphere of French interest in the Ohio Valley. The result was increased concern on the part of both the British and the French for their claims to the trans-Allegheny region, which not only precipi- tated the showdown of 1754-1763,but stirred the English colonists to plan for the future of their claimed western The first steps toward an actual Anglo-American occupation of the transmontane district were taken by Virginians. As early as 1716 Governor Alexander Spotswood led an expedition across the Alle- ghenies, and two years later he suggested to the British ministry the establishment of permanent settlements in the Great Lakes are&’ While no immediate action followed upon Spotswood’s proposals, the colonies’ interest in the western country was already receiving re- cognition.5

3This article deals only with the development and significance of the idea of new western colonies in relation to ideas embraced in the territorial system as established by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. No attempt is made here to detail in full the history of all the many colonial land companies and speculations. For that purpose, the reader should refer to the following standard works: Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New York, 1937); Shaw Livermore, Early American Land Companies (New York, 1939) ; Kenneth P. Bailey, The Ohio Company 01 Virginia (Glendale, Calif., 1939) and Alfred P. James, The Ohio Company (Pittsburgh, 1959) ; George E. Lewis, The Indiana Corn- pany, 1768-1798 (Glendale, Calif., 1941) ; Clarence E. Carter, Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1765-1774 (Washington, 1910) ; the introductions to each volume of Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Susquehannah Company Papers (4 vols., Ithaca, N. Y., 1962) ; Albert T. Volwiler, George Croghan and the Westward Movement (Cleveland, 1926) and Nicholas B. Wainwright, George Croyhan, Wilderness Diplomat (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1959); and William S. Lester, The Transylvania Colony (Spencer, Ind., 1935). Similarly, the purpose here is to examine thoughts of colonial Americans on western policy. For thorough coverage of British western policy see Clarence W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics (2 vols., Cleve- land, 1917), some of whose findings are disputed, however, in Jack M. Sosin, Whitehall in the Wilderness (Lincoln, Neb., 1961). Separatist movements among the western settlers, both before and after the Revolution, are discussed in Frederick Jackson Turner, “Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era,” American Historical Review, I (October, 1895; January, 1896), 70-87, 251-69. The general affairs of the colonies are well documented in Lawrence H. Gipson, The British Empire Before the American Revolution (14 vols., New York, 1936- 1968). George H. Alden, New Governments West of the Alleghenies before 1780 (Madison, Wis., 1897), covers much of the same ground as this article but has overlooked important materials and fails to relate adequately the new colony ideas to the future United States territorial system. 4Governor Spotswood to the Lords of Trade, August 14, 1718, in R. A. Brock, ed., The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia (2 vols., Richmond, Va., 1888), 11, 286-98. Spotswood reported that “The Chief Aim of my Expedition over the Great Mountains in 1716, was to satisfye my Self whether it was practicable to come at the Lakes.” Ibid., 295. For additional details of Spotswood’s expedition see Richard L. Morton, Colonial Virginia (2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960), 11, 446-51. 5 Spotswood to the Lords of Trade, August 14, 1718, Brock, Letters of Bpots- 286 Indiana Magazine of Historg

Twenty years later, however, Virginia’s burgeoning population and speculative interests incited her to further action. In 1738 her legislature boldly proclaimed that the newly organized frontier county of Augusta extended “to the utmost limits of Virginia,” mean- ing the enormous bounds designated by her early chartem6 During the following decade Virginia began to grant lands amidst and beyond the mountains. By the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,‘ to which Virginians were parties, the Six Nations Iroquois vacated their claims to lands south of the Ohio River. This treaty stimulated a sudden new interest in western lands, and 1745 the Virginia council made four large grants.8 In November, 1747, John Hanbury and several others, including Thomas and Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and Lawrence and Augustine Washington, petitioned the council for a grant of 200,000 acres near the forks of the Ohio River.s These petitioners, along with Governor Robert Dinwiddie and some others, formally incorporated as the Ohio Company of Virginia in 1751, having received a royal charter and royal confirmation of their grant two years earlier.l0 This company was the first venture to undertake the actual occupation of trans-AllegLmy territories. While the principal interest of the company lay in the Indian trade, the company also planned to settle a hundred families upon its land- wood, 11, 295-97. See also Bailey, Ohio Company of Virginia, 22, which, however, makes the erroneous statement that Spotswood’s plans “merely pushed the Virginia frontier farther toward the Alleghenies.” As his letter shows, Spots- wood had much more to offer than that. See page 287 for the full scope of Spots- wood’s ideas and suggestions. 6 Act organizing Augusta and Orange counties, November, 1738, in William Waller Hening, ed., The Btatutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia (13 vols., Richmond, Va., 1814-1823), V, 78-80. 7 The treaty of Lancaster is in the Minutes 01 the Provincial Council of Penn- sylvania (8 vols., Harrisburg, Pa., 1851), IV, 698-737. Representatives from Virginia present for the making of the treaty included Thomas Lee, a future member of the Ohio Company of Virginia. See the documents cited in notes 9 and 10. 8 Record of Virginia land grants, George Croghan Papers (Cadwallader Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society, Harrisburg), Box 4. James Patton to John Blair, January, 1753, Draper Collection (Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison), 1QQ: 175-76. Patton, a trader, and John Robinson, president of the Virginia council, received two of these grants, each for 100,000 acres and located on the Holston and Greenbrier rivers, respectively. 9 Petition of John Hanbury, et al., to the Crown, 1748, in pp. 2-3 of the “Case of the Ohio Company,’’ 1774, pamphlet facsimile printed in Lois Mulkearn, ed., George Mercer Papers (Pittsburgh, 1954), 329-92; Ohio Company petition to Governor Robert Dinwiddie, November 6, 1752, ibid., pamphlet, 7-8; petition of a committee of the Ohio Company to King George 111, September, 1761, ibid., pamphlet, 25-26; memorial of Georgp Mercer to the king, 1765, ibid., pamphlet, 32-33. According to Mulkearn the original petition to the Virginia council of November 10, 1747, has been lost. For full accounts of the organization of the Ohio Company, see Bailey, Ohio Company of Virginia, 24-31, 35-60, and James, Ohio Company, 9-59. ‘OZbid.; articles of agreement and copartnership for the Ohio Company, May 23,1761, printed in James, Ohio Company, 205-19. New Western Colony Schemes 287

holdings and to build a fort and a permanent trading post.ll These steps toward colonization so alarmed the French that they sent CClo- ron de Blainville on a tour through the Ohio country to post lead plates bearing reaffirmation of French possession.12 Neither the Ohio Company of Virginia nor Governor Spotswood proposed the establishment of any new governments outside of Vir- ginia’s own jurisdiction. They did, however, advance many of the same arguments for settlement of the western country as would the new colony advocates at a later date. Governor Spotswood had said in 1718 that the shore of Lake Erie, “almost in the center of the French Communication . . . seems the most proper for forming a Settlement on, by w’ch we shall not only share w’th the French in the Commerce and friendship of those Indians inhabiting the banks of the Lakes, but may be able to cutt off or disturb the communication between Canada and Louisiana . . . .” Spotswood further remarked that “If such a Settlement were once made, I can’t see how the ffrench could dispute our Right of Possession . . . and should they think fitt to dispossess us by force, We are nearer to Support than they to attack . . . .’,I3 Similarly, in 1751 the Ohio Company declared its intention of “taking up and settling a Tract or Territory of Land [near the forks of the Ohio] and for the carrying on a Trade with the Indians in those part^."'^ These plans anticipated the ideas Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Pownall, Samuel Wharton, and numerous others expressed when they later detailed their schemes for new western colonies. Two nearly simultaneous developments prompted these proposals for new interior colonies under separate governments. The occasion for such proposals came with the crisis at the forks of the Ohio, which demonstrated the inability of either Pennsylvania or Virginia to repel the encroachng French. George Washington’s two expeditions, in 1753 and 1754, failed to prevent the French from occupying western Pennsylvania, and the peace-minded Quaker assembly refused to sanction any claim by Pennsylvania to the environs of the f0rk9.l~

11 See Christopher Gist’s journals for 1750-1751 in Mulkearn, George Mercer Papers, 7-40, and the documents cited in note 9. The company was to receive some 300,000 additional acres upon fulfilling these three tasks, which were conditions of the grant, within seven years. 12For an account of CBloron de Blainville’s expedition, see George A. Wood, “C6loron de Blainville and French Expansion in the Ohio Valley,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, IX (September, 1923), 302-19. 13SpotSwood to the Lords of Trade, August 14, 1778, Brock, Letters of Spots- wood, 11. 297. I4Articles of agreement of the Ohio Company, May 23, 1751, James, Ohio Company, 206. See John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings or George Washington (39 vols., Washington, 1931-1944), I, 22-95, for Washington’s own accounts (in numerous letters and other documents) of his expeditions. See also Pennsylvania Council Minutes, V, 763. 288 Indiana Magazine of History

The failure of Virginia and Pennsylvania to hold the line against the French was likely responsible for the calling of the Albany Congress of 1754, at which some of the first thoughts of new interior colonies were aired. The conference at Albany, New York, was a.n early landmark in American constitutional history. It produced the famous Albany Plan of Union, which included in its program Benjamin Franklin’s proposals for the erection of new colonies. Franklin urged that “The Establishing of new colonies westward on the Ohio and the Lakes, (a matter of considerable importance to the increase of British trade and power, to the breaking that of the French, and to the protection and security of our present colonies,) would best be carried on by a joint union.’”6 Having thus advanced the central arguments for colonizing the trans-Appalachian country, Franklin further noted that

A particular colony has scarce strength enough to extend itself by new settlements, at so great a distance from the old; but the joint force of the Union might suddenly establish a new colony or two in those parts . . . . The power of settling new colonies is therefore thought a valuable part of the plan, and what cannot so well be executed by two unions as by one.17

Franklin also offered a suggestion as to how the new colonies might be prepared for membership in the Anglo-American union. He pro- pased that the federal government of the union “make laws for regu- lating and Governing such new Settlements, till the Crown shall think fit to form them into Particular Governments.’”* The Albany Plan of Union came to nought, but in it had appeared several ideas later to become basic assumptions of the Continental Congress when that body dealt with the western question. These notions were: that securing and settling the western country were vital to the safety and continued economic prosperity of the older colonies ; that establishing new settlements and governments in the western country should be the responsibility of all the colonies in con- cert and in common ; that the new settlements and governments should be independent of any one of the older colonies ; that the new colonies should be elevated to membership in the union by predetermined and regular procedures ; and that provision be made by the union government for their temporary administration during the period of initial ~ett1ement.l~

laBenjamin Franklin, “Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union,” in Leonard W. Labaree, ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (15 vols., New Haven, 1959- ) , V, 397-417, under subheading “Reasons against Partial Unions,” 401. To date this edition is complete through 1768. 1’ Ibid., subheading “New Settlements,” 411-12. 18Albany Plan of Union, ibid., 390. 19 Franklin’s draft of the Articles of Confederation, submitted on July 21, New Western Colony Schemes 289 Meanwhile, in Connecticut the exhaustion of lands available for speculation within the borders of that colony had led, in 1753, to the organization of the Susquehannah Company.2o This enterprise proposed to purchase from the Indians the Wyoming Valley of the Sus- quehannah, and to establish settlements there.21 The scheme involved the revival of the long dormant claims of Connecticut, under her old charters, to the lands west of New York and New Jersey.z2 The proponents of the project soon recognized the difficulty of governing the noncontiguous territory from Connecticut and so expected to form a separate go~ernment.~~Also, several of Connecticut‘s delegates to the Albany Congress were intimately connected with the Susque- hannah Company. Having heard the arguments of Franklin and their seconding by Thomas Pownall, governor of Massachusetts, and by Sir William Johnson, Indian agent for the northern colonies, they

1775, contained the following provisions: [In Article V1 “That the Power and Duty of the Congress extend to . . . the Planting of new Colonies when proper.” [In Article XIII] New colonies “may . . . be received into this Confederation . . . and shall thereupon be entitled to all the Advantages of our Union, mutual Assistance and Commerce.” See Worthington C. Ford, et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress (34 vols., Washington, 1904-1937),11, 196, 198. 20 Boyd, Susquehannah Company Papers, I, xlii-lxxix, and documents, ibid., 1-28. 21See the editorial note in ibid., lxvii; minutes of the meetings of the Sus- quehannah Company, July 18, September 6, 1753, (bid., 28, 40-41. The Wyoming Valley is located in northeastern Pennsylvania in the vicinity of present Scran- ton and Wilkes-Barre. 22 These claims brought on a long and acrimonious dispute with Pennsyl- vania. See Francis N. Thorpe, comp., Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws (7 vols., Washington, 1909), I, 535-36, for the basis of Connecticut’s claim to the Wyoming Valley, the “sea to sea” boundaries specified in her 1662 charter. Actually, however, Connecticut had vacated this claim in two boundary agreements with New York in 1683 and 1700. See the second report of John Armstrong (a deputy sent by Pennsylvania) to the Con- necticut council, November 27, 1754, in Boyd, Busquehannah Company Papers, I, 191; James Alexander to James Brown, December 15, 1752, ibid., 193; minutes of the council of New Jersey, August 20, 1755, ibid., 303-306. 23 See testimony of Stephen Sayre concerning the Susquehannah Company, 1762, in which Sayre said that the company was to have a separate jurisdiction since “the uniting that part [the Wyoming Valley] with this [Connecticut1 would be attended with insurmountable difficulties.” Boyd, SusquehlGnnah Corn- puny Papers, 11, 153; minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, November 20, 1754, ibid., I, 167; resolution of the Connecticut General Assembly on the memorial of the Susquehannah Company, May 2, 1755, ibid., 278-80. See also ibid., lxvii-lxviii, where Boyd states that the size of the Susquehannah Com- pany’s purchase from the Six Nations-some 5,000,000 acres-indicated that the company intended to found a new colony. The deed of the cession, which was not authorized by the principal chiefs of the Six Nations, is in ibid., 101-21. See also the editorial note in ibid., lxvii, quoting a dispatch of the London Mag* sine from Connecticut of July 27, 1753: “Several hundred people of this colony have agreed to purchase a large tract of Land of the Six Nations of Indians of the Susquehanna, about 300 leagues to the Westward, lying within the bounds of their Charter, to settle upon it, Expecting that it will be in a short time a distinct Government.” This statement is probably the first public suggestion of any independent western jurisdictions. 290 Indiana Magazine of History

returned from the conference convinced of the expediency of erecting a new colony from the Susquehannah Company’s The company in its sub,sequent program for colonization anticipated several considerations of the western country by the Continen- tal Congress. It expected its new colony to be confirmed as equal in status to any of the older colonies. More specifically, it provided for the duplication of Connecticut’s “corporate” form of government in the new colony and for the use of the New England land system of townships and advance location and survey in settling the land.25 The company’s program thus included some important ideas later adopted in the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787-regular’ advance survey and fully autonomous status with traditional governmental organization for the new western commonwealth. The scheme also maintained and elaborated upon the basis doctrines of Franklin’s reasoning at Albany: “we being desirous to Enlarge his Majesty’s English Settlements in North America and further to Spread Christianity.”2e The debates at the Albany Congress and the activities of the Sus- quehannah Company inspired several additional proposals for new colonies. Soon after the Albany conference Thomas Pownall offered his plan for two “barrier colonies,” one to be located in northwestern New York, the other at the headwaters of the Connecticut River. A third colony, added later to the scheme, was to be located immediately behind Virginia and Pennsylvania in the Ohio Valley. Pownall’s colonies were to pass through a temporary period of military rule until they were settled sufficiently to assume the institutions of regular civil government as in the older colonies.27 Here was a suggestion of the form of temporary territorial government later drawn in the Or- dinance of 1787. Benjamin Franklin, learning of Pownall’s plan, proceeded in the

24 Ibid., I, lxvii. The representatives were William Pitkin, Elisha Williams, and Roger Wolcott, Jr. ZaSee, for example, minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, May 19, 1762, ibid., 11, 130-32; minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Com- pany, November 20, 1754, ibid., I, 166-67. 26 Minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, July 18, 1753, ibid., 28. See also Governor Roger Wolcott’s approval of the Susquehannah Company’s project: “It will enlarge the English Possessions of the Countrey & advance our Frontiers Into It and being settled with good & orderly People will much Strengthen and Encourage ye English in north America against ye encroach- ments of ye French . , . and that it will be a Benefit to ye Six Nations of Indians who have Been always in Strict Alliance with ye English as it will . . . Strengthen them in Time of Warr against ye force of the Enemy-.” Ibid., 60-51. 27 Pownall’s plan is in his “Considerations toward a General Plan of Measures for the English Colonies” (broadside, New York, 1756), reprinted in Thomas Pownall, The Administration of the British Colonies (2 vols., London, 1774), 11, 234-44. It may be found conveniently in E. B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Rel& the to the Colonial History of the fitate 01 New York (12 vols., Albany, N. Y., 1849-1861), VI, 893-97. New Western Colony Schemes 291 fall of 1754 to draft a “Plan for Settling Two Western This scheme, an elaboration upon that of Pownall’s and of Franklin’s own representations before the Albany Congress, reiterated the importance of new colonies to the security of the frontier against the French, and to the extension of British trade. Franklin proposed the establishment of two colonies, one to be situated near Niagara Falls, the other in the valley of the Scioto River. The two new colonies should have the benefits of corporate government, as in Connecticut and Rhode Island, which Franklin considered to be the most efficient form and the most attractive for prospective settlers. The older colonies, Franklin suggested, would best be limited to the territory east of the Appala~hians.~~ The next publicized proposal for a new colony was that of Samuel Hazard, a Philadelphia merchant. Hazard had seen Franklin’s un- published plan in the fall of 1754.30 Taking the plan as his cue, Hazard announced the following spring a scheme for a colony embrac- ing a huge territory extending from the Alleghenies beyond the Mis- sissippi. The scheme’s constitutional formula emphasized the mission- ary aspects of col~nization.~~Nevertheless, the new colony would have “the same Privileges which the Colony of Connecticut enjoys.” Like the Susquehannah Company purchasers, Hazard planned to use the New England land system in organizing his ~ettlements.~~In ad-

28 Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, June 26, 1755, in Labaree, Franklin Papers, VI, 87. The plan was not published, however, until 1756. 29 “A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies,” ibid., V, 456-63. The plan was included in Thomas Pownall’s memorial to the Duke of Cumberland in 1756. See also ibid., 457n. The plan was also intended by Franklin to forestall the Susquehannah Company’s designs upon the Wyoming Valley, which Pennsyl- vania also claimed, by diverting attention to parts farther west. Franklin to Collinson, ibid., VI, 87. Franklin’s reasoning in his arguments for this plan was most characteristic: “If two strong colonies of English were settled between the Ohio and Lake Erie . . . these advantages might be expected : “1. They would be a great security to the frontiers of our other colonies: by preventing the incursions of the French and French Indians of Canada [into the older colonies] . . . . “2. The dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada with those of Louisiana would be prevented. * “4: We should secure’the friendship and trade’of the‘ Miamis [Indians) ’. . . : “6. The settlement of all the intermediate lands, between the present frontiers of our colonies on one side, and the lakes and Mississippi on the other; would be facilitated and speedily executed, to the great increase of Englishmen, English trade, and English power.” “Plan for Settling ‘l%o Western Colonies,” ibid., V, 458-59. SoFranklin to Collinson, June 26, 1755, ibid., VI, 87-88. While Franklin chastised Hazard for stealing his ideas and remarked that he thought Hazard “not the fittest in the World to conduct such an Affair,” he registered an approval in principle of Hazard’s plan. 3l Samuel Hazard’s scheme for a new colony, broadside, 1755, in Boyd, Busquehannah Company Papers, I, 251-58, and Hazard’s petition to the Connecti- cut General Assembly, May, 1755, ibid., 246-51. szIbid., 252, 253. Hazard apparently expected to be proprietor of the colony, 292 Indiana Magazine of History

dition, he was gathering together prospective settlers for his new colony. When he petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly in May, 1755, seeking Connecticut’s acquiescence in making its western claim part of his colony, he reported having enlisted “3508 Persons Able to Bear While this and other of Hazard’s claims were of doubt- ful veracity, the Connecticut assembly nevertheless agreed to Hazard’s request on the condition that the crown authorize the establishment of the new colony.34 Hazard’s scheme was without particular originality or influence, yet it was indicative of how readily the new colony idea was finding acceptance. The onset of the French and Indian War interrupted the increasing discussion of new western colonies, and Hazard’s proposals were the last to appear before the outbreak of hostilities. The early phases of the war saw some serious setbacks to the Anglo-American efforts to colonize the interior country. The Ohio Company of Virginia, the only organization which so far had actually begun the settlement of lands beyond the Alleghenies, saw all its work undone when the French took the company’s unfinished fort at the forks of the Ohio and destroyed its establishments at Redstone and “Gist’s place.”36 Neither the colonies nor the British Lords of Trade would accept the Albany Plan of Union with its colonization proposals ; and Hazard’s scheme was similarly ignored, soon passing into limbo with its inven- tor’s death in 1758.36 Only the Susquehannah Company, for the time being, maintained hope; its plans for a new colony, alone among the various schemes, embraced a territory that lay fairly within the established bounds of British control. Further activity had to wait for successful prosecution and conclusion of the ~ar.3~ and his scheme was rather illiberal in that it denied civil rights to non-Protes- tants. Ibid., 254. 33 Ibid., 247. 34 Resolution of the Connecticut General Assembly on the memorial of Samuel Hazard, May 2, 1755, ibid., 280-82. 35 See pp. 9-19 of the “Case of the Ohio Company,” pamphlet facsimile, Mulk- earn, George Mercer Papers, 329-92, 36 According to Alden, New Governments, 10, Hazard’s son Ebenezer presented petitions to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1774, attempting to revive the scheme, but his efforts failed. 37The war and the gloomy prospects afforded by its early developments did not deter Franklin from continuing to voice his sentiments optimistically. In 1766 he wrote to George Whitefield: “I sometimes wish that you and I were jointly employ’d by the Crown, to settle a Colony on the Ohio. I imagine we could do it effectually, and without putting the Nation to much expence . . . . What a glorious Thing it would be, to settle in that fine Country a large strong Body of Religious and Industrious People! What a Security to the other Colonies; and advantage to Britain, by Increasing her People, Territory, Strength, and Commerce. Might it not greatly facilitate the Introduction of pure Religion among the Heathen, if we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly see in our Indian Traders, the most vicious and abandoned Wretches of our Nation?” Benjamin Franklin to George White field, July 2, 1756, in Labaree, Franklin Papers, VI, 468-69. In 1760, Franklin published the essay entitled “The Interest of Great Britain Considered with New Western Colony Schemes 293

With the Peace of Paris in 1763 the forum for suggestions as to the future of the trans-Appalachian country was once again open. A plethora of new schemes for colonization presently appeared, elab- orating upon and extending the ideas and plans of the earlier proposals. As the hostilities clo8ed in favor of Britain and Anglo- America, the development and constitutional arrangements of the western country again became central issues. The imperial British ministry, finding itself now in the possession of the coveted interior region, at once discerned the necessity of formulating some regular western policy. Accordingly, the royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763, setting for the time being a westward limit to settlement, was issued as an interim measure, in order to gain time to make definite plans for the future of the western And now that the Anglo-American grip on the Ohio Valley seemed secure, new proposals for western colonization again proliferated. The first new proposal was publicized in Great Britain in the form of a pamphlet entitled “The Expediency of Securing Our North American Colonies, &c.,” and published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in November, 1763.39 The anonymous author of this pamphlet urged that the territories of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland be con- fined to the east of the Wabash and Maumee rivers and that the region between that line and the Mississippi, and from the Ohio to the Great Lakes, be erected into the new colony of Charlotina. The proposal located the nucleus of the new colony at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The pamphlet further described the advantages which would accrue from such a colony, pointing out the natural resources of the area, and restating once more the general principles behind the schemes of Franklin.”O It said nothing, however, about a form of government for the new colony. On the American side of the Atlantic the Proclamation of 1763,

Regard to Her Colonies,” in which he urged the seizure of the western country and all of Canada from the French in order to secure room for the colonies’ expansion. Ibid., IX, 59-100. 38 See, for example, George Washington’s comments on the Proclamation of 1763, in a letter to William Crawford of September 21, 1767: “I can never look upon that Proclamation in any other light . . . than as a temporary expedient . . . [which] must fall of course in a few years especially when [the] Indians are consenting to our Occupying the Lands.” Washington was entirely confident of soon being able to obtain lands beyond the line of the Proclamation. Fitz- patrick, Writings 01 Washington, 11, 468-69. For discussion at length of the Proclamation of 1763, see Alvord, Mississippi Valley in British Politics, I, Chapter 7. The proclamaton is printed in full isClarence W. Alvord and Clarence E. Carter, eds., The Critical Period, 1763-1765 (Springfield, Ill., 1915), 39-45. 3QPrinted in Alvord and Carter, The Critical Period, 134-61. The timing of this pamphlet suggests that it was intended as a rejoinder to the then misunder- stood Proclamation of 1763. See ibid., 13411. 40Ibid.. 139-46. Most especially, the colony was seen as a security against Indian uprisings like Pontiac’s Rebellon, then at its height. Alden, New Govern- ments, 12-14,misnames the colony as “Charlotiana.” 294 Indiana Magazine of History interdicting as it did any new western settlement, temporarily dis- couraged the proponents of interior colonies. It muted, for example, the hopes of the Mississippi Company, organized in Virginia shortly before the issuance of the proclamation to settle a colony on the Mis- sissippi straddling the lower Ohio.4i When it soon became clear that the proclamation’s limit to western settlement was only temporary, new ventures for interior colonization appeared. Notable among these schemes was the Illinois Company, organized on March 21, 1766, and including William Franklin, Samuel Wharton, George Croghan, George Morgan, and, as secret members, Sir William Johnson and Benjamin Franklin.42 This group sought a grant of 1,200,000 acres on the Illinois River, which was to become the center of a new colony bounded by the Mississippi, Ohio, Wabash, St. Joseph’s, and Wisconsin rivers.43 William Franklin, in his draft of the articles of agreement of the Illinois Company, reiterated the fundamental reasons for the colonization of the western country-the increase of English people, trade, and power, and the security of all the American dominions. He also proposed that “a Civil Government be established there, agreeable to the Principles of an English Con- ~titution.”~~The project, which was soon expanded to include another colony centered at Detroit and a third on the lower Ohio, met with the enthusiastic approval of Lord Shelburne, the imperial secretary of state for the southern de~artment.~~Though its petitions were ultimately refused, this scheme seems to have been the first new colony proposal to receive serious consideration from the British mini~try.‘~ More important among the principal new concerns was the Indiana Company or “Suffering Traders.” This organization grew out of the two groups of Pennsylvania Indian traders who had lost fortunes in the Indian uprisings of 1754 and 1763. After the failure of a petition seeking monetary compensation for their 10sses,4~the

41 Articles of the Mississippi Company, printed in Archer B. Hulbert, “Wash- ington’s ‘Tour of the Ohio’ and ‘Articles of the Mississippi Company,”’ Ohio Archeological and Historical Society Publications, XVII (1908), 436-39; memorial of the Mississippi Company to the king, September 9, 1763, printed in Carter, Illinois Country, 165-71. The company included, among others, George Wash- ington and Richard Henry Lee. 42Articles of agreement of the Illinois Company, printed in Clarence W. Alvord and Clarence E. Carter, eds., The New Regime, 1765-iY67 (Springfield, Ill., 1916), 203-204. 43 Ibid.; William Franklin, “Reasons for Establishing a British Colony at the Illinois with some Proposals for Carrying the Same into Immediate Execu- tion,” printed in Carter, Illinois Country, 172-81. 44 Ibid., 176. 45 Benjamin Franklin, “Remarks on the Illinois colony,” ca. 1772, in Jared Sparks, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin (10 vols., New York, 1856), IV, 233-41. 46 Ibid., 235-39, describing discussions of the proposed Illinois colony between Franklin and Shelburne. 47Petition of the “Sufferinq Traders” of 1754 to the king, April 1756, in the Ohio Company Papers (Etting Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society) ; New Western Colony Schemes 295

“sufferers” resolved in 1765 to obtain instead a grant of land on the Ohio. William Trent, one of the senior traders, was empowered by the “Suffering Traders’’ to seek redress in this form.48 The Indiana Company was related to the Illinois Company by interlocking membership, and together the two organizations were the progenitors of the most nearly successful colonization scheme of all, the Grand Ohio or Vandalia Company. The Indiana Company’s new interest in lands on the upper Ohio undoubtedly derived from Sir William Johnson’s preliminary negotiations with the Six Nations Iroquois in 1764 and 1765 for a relocation of the Indian boundary. In 1765 Johnson met with the Iroquois chiefs at his baronial residence on the Mohawk River in New York and ob- tained from them a temporary agreement on a new boundary. The obliging Indians relinquished their claims to the region south of the Ohio River and southeast of an irregular line running through northern Pennsylvania and western New Y~rk.~~The prospect of a vast tract of available lands on the upper Ohio was thus created. In addition, the Indians confirmed earlier grants made to George Croghan and William Trent near Fort Pitt, which gave them and their fellow “Suffering Traders” a ready foothold on the Those members of the Indiana Company who also belonged to the Illinois Company put aside the latter project in favor of this much likelier one. Three years later the Treaty of Fort Stanwix confirmed John- son’s pact of 1765.51The Six Nations granted the Indiana Company

~~ James Breden to William Trent, May 22, 1756, ibid.; petition of the “Suffering Traders” to the king, 1763 (?), ibid. 48Grants of powers of attorney to William Trent by Thomas Smallman, December 26, 1765, and by John Baynton, Samuel Wharton, Robert Callender, and Joseph Spear, March 5,1766, ibid. 49 Johnson’s agreement with the Indians in 1765 is in O’Callaghan, New York Colonial Documents, VII, 718-41. See also Ray Allen Billington, “The Fort Stan- wix Treaty of 1768,” New York History, XXV (1944), 182-94. The refusal of the British ministry to approve interior colonies such as that proposed by the Illinois Company. which were not contignoiis to the older colonies, probably mas a factor in the shift of interest among the new colony advocates to the upper Ohio region. Johnson’s negotiations with the Six Nations were rather characteristic of Anglo-American bartering with the Indians for land. For a study in depth of the elaborate protocol involved in these dealings, see Wilbur R. Jacobs, W~~CIFT?ICSSPolitics and Indian Gifts: The Northern Colonial Frontier, 1748-1763 (Lincoln, Neb., 1966). 50 Johnson’s agreement of 1765, O’Callaghan, New York Colonial Documents, VII, 729. The grants of Croghan and Trent had been located very close to the forks of the Ohio. In this agreement the Indians also approved the idea of a land grant as restitution for the traders’ losses. Ibid., 740. 51Treaty of Fort Stanwix, ibid., VIII, 111-34 (proceedings) and 135-37 (deed of cession); William Trent to John Baynton, September 30, 1768, Ohio Company Papers; Trent to Baynton, December 1, 1768, ibid.; Hugh Crawford to Trent, December 10, 1768, ibid. Only the claims of the suffers of 1763, and not those of 1754, were considered. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was an immense stimulus to those interested in western lands. It also brightened the hopes of the Susque- hannah Company, which was still engaged in northeastern Pennsylvania and which had just sent Eliphalet Dyer to England to “obtain his Majestys Confirma- 296 Indiana Magazine of Historg

some two million acres of land as restitution for the losses of 1763.62 The company next dispatched Wharton and Trent as agents to London to present petitions to the ministry and the king for confirmation of the grant.s3 While in London in the summer of 1769 Wharton and Trent, together with Thomas Walpole, a leading British banker and a man of considerable political influence, and Thomas Pownall, for- mer governor of Massachusetts and earlier advocate of new colonization, organized a new company, which soon assumed the name of Grand Ohio Company. The Indiana Company, in effect, provided the American membership of this new enterprise and determined all of its The newly reconstituted company at once sought the confirmation of the Indiana grant, but with a novel approach. Wharton and Walpole, availing themselves of the latter’s financial resources, offered to purchase the Indiana tract from the crown for the sum paid by the crown for the entire Fort Stanwix cession. A memorial proposing this was laid before Lord Hillsborough and the Lords of Trade on December 20, 1769. Receiving encouragement from the Lords of Trade, the company then presented the offer to the Lords of the Treasury on January 4, 1770, and to the king in council on the following May Prior to this time the Indiana-Grand Ohio Company had not intended to found a separate government. At the meeting with the Lords of Trade, however, Hillsborough suggested to Walpole and Wharton that they ask to purchase a tract large enough to form a new tion of our [Wyoming Valley] purchase and formation into a Distinct Colony for the purpose of Civil Government.” Boyd, Husquehannah Company Papers, 111, xii-xxix; minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, January 6, 1768, ibid., 1-2. 52 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, O’Callaghan, New York Colonial Documents, VIII, 111-37; Samuel Wharton, Plain Facts (Philadelphia, 1781), 83-88. The grant was bounded by the Ohio, the Little Kanawha, and the Laurel Mountains, the westernmost ridge of the Alleghenies. See also the agreement among William Trent, George Croghan, Samuel Wharton, and Alexander Lowry, December 22, 1768, Ohio Company Papers. 53 Articles of agreement between William Franklin, George Croghan, et al., and William Trent and Samuel Wharton, December 30, 1768, Ohio Company Papers; memorial of Moses Franks to the king on behalf of the Indiana Com- pany, 1768, ibid. 54 Wharton, Plain Facts, 149. Wharton and Walpole met on June 14, 1769, and soon thereafter organized a committee which on December 27, 1769, became the Grand Ohio Company. This company was also called the Walpole Company and, later on, the Vandalia Company. The name Grand Ohio Company was used to distinguish the new organization from the old Ohio Company of Virginia. which was, in fact, absorbed into the new organization through an agreement with George Mercer, the older company’s agent. Mercer’s action, however, die satisfied other members of the old Virginia group, who were unhappy with the extremely small share (one seventy-second part ownership) given them in the new concern. See James Mercer (brother of George) to members of the Ohio Company, January 9, 1772. in Mulkearn, George Mercer Papers, 312-15; George Mason to James Mercer, January 13, 1572, ibid., 315-17. New Western Colony Schemes 297

colony.56 Hillsborough, for reasons of domestic politics, secretly op- posed the scheme and sought, by so advising the company, to assure the unacceptability of its plans to the Lords of the Treasury. To his chagrin the device backfired when the Lords agreed to the pur- Henceforth, the controlling purpose of the Grand Ohio Com- pany was to establish a new western colony. The Grand Ohio Company’s progress was much slowed by Hills- borough and his friends in the ministry, who contrived delays that eventually proved fatal to the company’s Nevertheless, before the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775 suspended its activities, the Grand Ohio Company moved nearer to the actual establishment of a new western commonwealth than had any preceding venture. In spite of Hillsborough’s opposition the king in council ordered on August 14, 1772, the certification of the land grant and the erection of a new colony, Vandalia.5QThe Privy Council was directed to draw up a report on the grant and a draft of the charter for the new colony. Lord Dartmouth presented the Privy Council’s recommendations on May 6, 1773. Vandalia was to comprehend all of the lands received from the Indians at Fort Stanwix, comprising the area bounded by the Ohio and Louisa (now Kentucky) rivers and the westernmost ridge of the Alleghenies. All that was necessary now for the establishment of the new colony was the preparation of its charter and grant. The solicitor general and the attorney general, however, raised objections which delayed their carrying out the instructions to prepare the documents until after the onset of the Revolutionary War.s0 The documents relating to the Vandalia colony contain the per- fection of both the materialistic reasoning behind the proposals for new western colonies and the means of government suggested for them. The royal order in council of August 14, 1772, noted that “the Lands in Question do not lie beyond the reach of advantageous Inter-

55 Wharton, Plain Facts, 149-50; Samuel Wharton, Faots and Observations (London, 1774), 138-44. 66 Zbid. 57Zbid.; Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, July 14, 1773, in Albert Henry Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (10 vols., New York, 1905-1907), VI, 96-99. It was ironic that so convinced an opponent of western colonization suggested the most nearly successful try at western colonization. 58 Wharton, Plain Facts, 149-62; Wharton, Facts and Observations, passim.; Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, July 14, 1773, Smyth, Writings 01 Franklin, VI, 96-99; Lord Dartmouth to Lord Dunmore, October 5, 1774, in the Papers of the Continental Congress, Item 41, X, 489; minutes of a meeting of the Indiana Company at Pittsburgh, September 22, 1775, Ohio Company Papers. 59Wharton, Plain Facts, 153-54; order of the king in council, August 14, 1772, Ohio Company Papers. It was originally proposed to call the new colony Pitts ylvania. 6oReport of the Privy Council of May 6, 1773, Ohio Company Papers; Whar- ton, Plain Facts, 153-56; Wharton, Facts and Observations, 113-18. Wharton angrily denounced the king’s lawyers, saying that they usurped the powers of ministers of the cabinet. 298 Indiana Magazine of History course with this Kingdom,” and that Wharton and Walpole and their associates “are best entitled to such Mark of [his] Majestys Royal Favor.”61 Wharton and Benjamin Franklin saved no energy in re- iterating the same arguments in rebuttal to the Hillsborough fac- tion.‘* The report of the Privy Council of May 6, 1773, besides stating that the settlers in the territory of Vandalia “from their Nature and remote Situation, cannot participate of the Advantages of the civil Constitution of any other Colony,” included a complete draft of the new colony’s instrument of g~vernment.‘~ The proposed government of Vandalia included a royally appointed governor and a legislature of two houses, much as in the other royal colonies. The governor had “the like Powers-Privileges and Authorities both Civil and Military as are given to the Governors of other Colonies under [the British imperial] Government.” The upper house of the legislature consisted of “a Council consisting of twelve Persons to be appointed by [the crown] in like manner as the Councils in other Royal Governments.” The council should “have the same Powers Privileges and Authorities and be subject to the same Restrictions and Regulations as in other Colonies.” The lower house, called the “House of Representatives,” comprised “two Deputies elected by the Majority of Freeholders of each of the Coun- ties” of the colony; but, until the province had been sufficiently settled to warrant the organization of twelve counties, the lower house would have twenty-four members “chosen by the Freeholders of the Province at large.” To qualify for election as a representative, a man was required to own one thousand acres of land in fee simple, and adhere to a Protestant faith; a voting freeholder must similarly own two hundred acres and be a Protestant. The legislature jointly held the “Power and Authority to make, constitute and ordain Laws Statutes and Ordinances for the Publick Peace Welfare and good Government of the said Colony.” Parliamentary procedure should be as “is observed in Respect to the passing Acts of Parliament in Great Britain.” The governor was given the right of veto and of con- vening and proroguing the legislature ; and the Privy Council reserved the right to disallow laws of the colony. The new colony was also to have a superior court and lesser courts of common law ; the judges of these courts shared with the governor the powers of appointing local

61Royal order in council, August 14, 1772, Ohio Company Papers. 62 Franklin’s reply to Hillsborough, entitled “Rules by Which a Great -Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One,” is in Smyth, Writings of Franklin, VI, 127-37, and further restates Franklin’s early arguments of 1754 for the founding of new colonies. See also Wharton, Plain Facts, passim, and Wharton, Facts and Observations, passim. 83 Report of the Privy Council, May 6,1773, Ohio Company Papers. The discussion which follows is derived from this source. New Western Colony Schemes 299 magistrates. The Church of England was established, and provision was made for the local election of vestrymen and wardens. In drawing up the Vandalia charter the Privy Council was erecting a new dominion equal in status and similar in most governmental respects to the older colonies. The Council specified as its controlling purpose in so doing “the Necessity . . . for introducing some regular and uniform System of Government” into the western country. In this and in most of its other aspects the Vandalia program, like the earlier new colony schemes, anticipated the guiding principles followed by the Continental Congress when it undertook to prepare in- struments of government for the hinterland.‘j4 When granting the requests of the Vandalia proprietors-to-be, the Council was, moreover, merely following the sort of advice which Americans like Ben- jamin Franklin had long been offering. This advice, expressed through the Privy Council in the Vandalia charter, would presently find re-expression in the Continental Congress’ ultimate decision on statehood for the western country. Meanwhile, as the efforts of the Grand Ohio Company were reaching their climax, another new scheme appeared which represented, by and large, the final stage in the development of the new colony idea. This concern, called the Transylvania Company, differed con- siderably in its modus operandi from most of the other colonization schemes. Rather than dealing with the imperial ministry through regular channels to obtain a land grant and a charter as the other companies had lately been doing, the Transylvania Company acted on its own initiative, apparently without other authority, to establish and organize under a new jurisdiction a settlement beyond the mountains. The company was organized originally as the Louisa Company, a speculative enterprise, by Judge Richard Henderson of North Carolina, in August, 1774.6’ With the addition of a few more members the Louisa Company became, on January 6, 1775, the Transyl- vania Company. Henderson and his partners forthwith determined to found a new commonwealth in the Kentucky country.F6 Henderson’s group, which included Daniel Boone and Nathaniel Hart, another famous pioneer in Kentucky history, proceeded from North Carolina through Cumberland Gap to Kentucky in March,

64 The Continental Congress was familiar with the Vandalia scheme, having received several memorials and petitions from the remnant of the company after 1775. One prominent member of Congress, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, was in fact a member of the Indiana Company. Copies of the royal order in council of August 14, 1772, and of the report of the Privy Council of May 6, 1773, are in the Papers of the Continental Congress, Item 41, X, 500ff. 65Articles of agreement of the Louisa Company, August 27, 1774, Draper Collection, 1CC:2. See also Lester, Transylvania, Chapters 1 and 2, for additional details. 66 Articles of the Transylvania Company, January 6, 1776, Draper Collection, 1cc:3-9. 300 Indiana Magazine of History

1775. Just prior to leaving, they purchased from the Cherokee Indians at Watauga all the lands lying between the Kentucky River and the divide separating the Tennessee and Cumberland water~heds.~~In making the purchase and undertaking its settlement the Transylvani- ans acted under the erroneous assumption that “the laws of England” sanctioned their activities.68 Likewise, in erecting a separate government the company merely acted on the precedent set by the “Wa- tauga association” ; the latter, however, had been intended only to provide temporary government until North Carolina organized the district, and so its purposes were altogether unlike Henderson’~.”~In no form was there any authorization of Henderson’s scheme from existing jurisdictions, and his activities elicited stern opposition from Virginia and North Carolina.To Nevertheless, Henderson’_scolony attained a fair degree of constitutional development. Henderson and his associates proceeded to draw up a proprietary form of government for Transylvania. Hen- derson himself convoked a legislative body, issuing election writs to his colonists upon his assumed prerogatives as proprietor. He met with the elected delegates on May 23, 1775, at Boonesborough. In a preliminary speech he advised them that they were “perhaps . . . fixing the palladium, or placing the first corner stone of an edifice,” in establishing the government of Transylvania. Urging that it was “indispensably necessary, that laws should be composed for the regu- lation of our conduct,” Henderson instructed the members of his legislature to erect courts and other machinery of administration and law enforcement. This the delegates proceeded to do and on May 27 they,

67 Journal of Richard Henderson in Kentucky, ibid., 1CC:21-30; Nathaniel Hart. Jr.. to Wilkins Tannehill, April 27, 1839, in the Louisville Neiws-Letter of May 23, 1840, ibid., lCC:197-200. See also Lester, Transylvania, 29-45. The purchase from the Cherokee, negotiated March 14-17, 1775, was called variously the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals or the Path Deed. 88 Articles of agreement of the Transylvania Company, Draper Collection, 1CC:3-9. In fact, the row over the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, during which the validity of George Croghan’s private purchases was called into question, indicated the weak grounds upon which such purchases rested. Croghan, who had been in a situation similar to that of Henderson, thought the latter’s purchase was legal. See Croghan’s deposition of 1777, ibid., lCC:135-36. 69 See Turner, “Western Statc-Making in the Revolutionary Era,” for an accoruit of the Watavqn associsLio2. The i’vatauga settlers adopted the laus of Virginia, to which they had expected to be annexed; however, they had settled in territory claimed by North Carolina. Henderson had had occasion to observe the methods ot :be S;’atauga settiers when he went there to negotiate his purchase from the Indians. 70See, for example, Lord Dunmore’s proclamation of March 21, 1775, Draper Col!eciion, 1CC.19-20; James Rlves, ‘‘Col. Richard Henderson,” Louisviilc News- Letter, Nay 30, 1840, ibid., 1CC:202; Governor Alexander Martin of North Carolina to Lord Dartmouth, November 12, 1775, in William E. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina (10 vols., Raleigh, N.C., 1890), X, 321-28, which described Transylvania as a “felonious undertaking.” A parallel may be observed in the intrusion of the Connecticut emigrants and the Susquehannah Company into the Wyoming Valley and Pennsylvania’s resultant opposition. New Western Colony Schemes 301 together with Henderson and the other proprietors, concluded a “compact between the proprietors and the people.”71 The “compact’? was surprisingly democratic in tone. It provided for annual elections to the legislature. The legislature, or “Conven- tion” as it was usually called, could adjourn and convene itself and was subject to be called into session by the proprietors in cases of emergency. The “legislative authority” of the colony comprised “three branches, to-wit : the delegates or representatives chosen by the people, a council not exceeding twelve men, possessed of landed estate, residing in the colony, and the proprietors.” The proprietors reserved a veto over all legislation, in order to protect their interest~.~*The number of delegates from each community would “be as- certained by law.” The house of delegates had the sole power of the purse. Judges of the superior court must “be appointed by the proprietors, but supported by the people”; the lower court judges were to “be recommended by the people, and approved of by the proprietors.” Finally, the “compact” decreed “a perfect religious freedom and general toleration.” Henderson was trying to transplant an idealized version of proprietary government with a democratic facade to the wilderness he had entered, assuming at the same time the regular prerogatives of an independent colonial government. The principal weakness of Hen- derson’s scheme was that it tried to mix democracy with aristocratic paternalism . Imposing quitrents and other feudalistic obligations upon a supposedly democratic political system incurred for Hender- son the warm opposition of his own colonists, in addition to that of the governments of Virginia and North Nevertheless, Henderson’s apparent wish to institute a democratic regime in his colony constituted a notable precedent. Although his project soon collapsed, it very likely sowed the seeds of the opposition to Virginian rule which resulted, ultimately, in Kentucky’s separate ~tatehood.~’ In this respect, it helped give impetus to the concept that the western country must become part of the American union as new states, not as territory subject to the older states.

‘1 Journal of Henderson, Draper Collection, 1CC: 31-82; journal of the Transyl- vania legislature, Louisville Xews-Letter, June 6, 1840, ibid., 1CC :202-206. 72 Zbid.; deposition of Nathaniel Hinderson at Williamsburg, October 27, 1778, CbCd., lCC:160-66; deposition of John Floyd, October 23, 1778, ibtd., 1CC:170-73; deposition of Isaac Shelby, December 3, 1777, ibid., lCC:166-70; deposition of Abra- ham Hite, October 23, 1778, ibid., 1CC:173-77. 78 Ibid. 74 The Transylvania colony is perhaps better viewed as a stage in the development of frontier separatism in the Revolutionary period. However, like the other new colony schemes, it had something to offer in the way of suggestions for future western policy. For a discussion of Transylvania’s place among western separatist movements, see Turner, “Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era.” 302 Indiana Magazine of History

The fate of the Transylvania Company’s design was, of course, the same as that of all the other schemes. Notwithstanding the mul- tiplicity of proposals, none of the projects for new western colonies ever came to fruition. As has been indicated, the failure of the Albany Congress and the intercession of the French and Indian War cut short the early plam of Benjamin Franklin, and the scheme of Franklin’s imitator, Hazard, expired with its exponent in 1758. The outbreak of the American Revolution, and the accompanying self-assertion of the original colonies, sealed the fate of all the other schemes. Transyl- vania, already disintegrating from within and ignored by the Con- tinental Congress, was the first to c011apse.~~The royal authority under which the colony of Vandalia had been ordered established ceased to be operable in America with the inception of hostilities in the spring of 1775. The end of imperial interference certainly aided Virginia in her efforts to forestall the Vandalia project, whose designated territories lay within Virginia’s historic claim. The Con- tinental Congress, responding to Virginia’s pleas, finally excluded all of the private land company claims, including Vandalia, by resolutions of September 13, 1783.76 And meanwhile, in November, 1782, the Susquehannah Company’s aspirations were finally defeated when, after a long and bitter controversy, its territories were awarded to Pennsylvania by a court of arbitrati0n.I‘ The failure of the plans for new western colonies to produce material results does not, however, obscure their importance and interest as sources for precedents of the United States territorial system. Although Congress officially disapproved of all the schemes, its members presumably remembered and utilized many of the ideas that had been promulgated. Like the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the proposals for new interior colonies-far more than representing merely the grasping of speculators-were proffered solutions to the western problem. The theme of problem and solution was demonstrat-

76 See notes 70, 72, and 74. In the Journals of Congress, Vols. 11, I11 (covering the year 1775), there is absolutely no mention either of Henderson or of the Transylvania undertaking. See also James Hogg to Richard Henderson, n. d. [December, 1775, or January, 17761, recounting fully the hostile reactions of Virginia’s delegates in Congress to the presence of Hogg as a “delegate” from Transylvania. Peter Force, ed., American Archives - (6 vols., Washington, 1843), IV, 543-46. Silas Deane of Connecticut to James Hogg, November, 1776, 4bM., 656-57, displays a similarly unsympathetic reaction. 78 See Wharton, Plain Facts and Facts and Obsewations, pass(m., for numerous references to Virginian opposition to the establishment of Vandalia. The Indiana Company, after the failure of the Vandalia project. tried unsuccessfully to have its own grant erected into a new colony. See the memorial of George Morgan on behalf of the Indiana Company to the constitutional convention of Virginia, December 12, 1777, Draper Collection. 1CC: 140-46. The resolution of Congress of September 13, 1783, annulling the land companies’ claims, is in! the Journals of Congress, XXV, 660-64. 77 Journals or Congress, XXIV, 6-32. The court met from November 12 to. December 30,1782, at Trenton. New Western Colong Schemes 303

ed in nearly all of the arguments of the new colony advocates. Fun- damentally, these arguments answered to three specific problems : the older colonies’ need for security against invasions and depredations ; the problem of getting and maintaining possession of the western claim; and the desire for a sphere for the continued growth of colonial trade, settlement, and land speculation. The prospects for continued growth in the existing area of the colonies no longer seemed satifactory. The proposed new colonies, as their backers pointed out, offered solutions to all of these problems. The same problems, in only slightly different circumstances, were dealt with presently by the infant Republic when it drew up the ordinances creating the territorial system. Considerations of the Indian trade, of the Spanish and British threats, and of the welfare of the original states and the western settlers alike always stood before Congress and were part of the stimuli to establishment of the territorial system. Even more important, however, were the actual constitutional precedents offered by the schemes for new colonies. Notable among these precedents was the introduction of the New England land system of townships, rectangular coordinates, and advance location, to replace the old, haphazard method of metes and bounds and indis- criminate location earlier used on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers. The New England system was specified in the proposals of Thomas Pownall, Samuel Hazard, the Susquehannah Company, and William Franklin’s Illinois Company.‘* Moreover, the plans of Hazard, the Susquehannah Company, the Illinois Company, and the draft charter of Vandalia all reserved for public use (as for the sup port of schools and churches) certain portions of the territories of their respective colonies.78 These ideas in refined form composed much of the substance of the Land Ordinance of 1785.*O The schemes for new western colonies also anticipated in many important respects the design of the Ordinance of 1787. Most important, the new colony exponents expected their colonies to stand as equals with the older colonies-to enjoy the same prerogatives and autonomy. They cited the earlier example of Georgia, which, though

78Pownall’s plan for new colonies. O’Callaghan, New York Colonial DoW ments, VI, 893-97; Boyd, susquehannah Company Papers, I, xxxii-xxxv; petition of Samuel Hazard to the Connecticut General Assembly, May 2, 1776, Cbid., 263; minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, May 19. 1762, Cbld., 11, 130-32; William Franklin, “Reasons for Establishing a British Colony at the Illinois,” Carter, Illinois Country, 172-81. 79 Boyd, 8usquehannah Company Papers, I, xxxii-xxxv; petition of Samuel Hazard to the Connecticut General Assembly, May 2, 1776, ibld.. 263; minutes of a meeting of the Susquehannah Company, May 19, 1762, CbCd., 11, 130-32; William Franklin, “Reasons for Establishing a British Colony at the Illinois,” Carter, Illinois Country, 172-81; report of the Privy Council, May 6, 1773, Ohio Company Papers. 80 Journals of Congress, XXVIII, 376-81. 304 Indiana Magazine of Historg

not an interior colony, had been founded as a bastion against Spanish and Indian depredations and intrusions on the southern frontier, and had been accorded a status equal to that of the other colonies.81 This anticipated that clause of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which declared that the new states “shall be admitted . . . on an equal foot- ing with the original States.”sz Moreover, by planning new and separate governments for the western country, the new colony advocates announced their conviction, born of experience, that the older colonies could not govern properly beyond certain westward Iimits.8a The new western colony schemes in addition presaged the Ordi- nance of 1787 in attempting to assure that their prospective settlers would retain the privileges and rights they had enjoyed as inhabitants of the older colonies. Except for the evangelical scheme of Hazard, the new colony proposals, most notably Transylvania, were inclined to allow broad liberties of conscience although they did usually restrict voting and officeholding to Protestants. In terms of property qualifi- cations, however, the Vandalia charter granted a suffrage no less liberal than that in most of the older In Transylvania, which also promised ‘‘a perfect religious freedom and general toleration,” the suffrage belonged not merely to freeholders, but to “the people.”8s All of the colonization ventures sought charters instituting the same forms of government that prospective settlers had been used to in their home areas. Some proposals, like the Vandalia charter, actually spelled out the powers and responsibilities of government in terms of “other Colonies.’’ss There is some evidence that the proponents of the new colonies anticipated, in rough outline, the “apprenticeship government” fea- ture of the Ordinance of 1787. Thomas Pownall’s first proposal for new colonies provided for a period of military rule while population grew to sufficient strength to permit a civil government to take control.*’ The Albany Plan of Union delegated the temporary adminis-

81 See, for example, BenjamJn Franklin’s essay, “The Interest of Great Britain Considered,” Labaree, Franklin Papers, IX. 69-100. 82 Journals of Congress, XXXII, 334-43; quotation is on page 342. 8aSee note 81. Richard Henry Lee later admitted that Virginia could not mai-ntain government in Kentucky or the Old Northwest in a letter to Patrick Henry, November 15, 1778, in Edmund C. Burnett, Letters of Members of the Con- tinental Congress (8vols., Washington, 1921-1936),111,495-96. 84 Report of the Privy Council, May 6,1773, Ohio Company Papers. 86 Journal of the Transylvania legislatune, in the Louisville News-Letter, June 6, 1840, Draper Collection, 1CC:202-206. The bill of rights appended to the Ordinance of 1787 a!so stipulated religious freedom with similar eloquence. Journals 01 the Continental Congress, XXXII, 340-41. 86 See the report of the Privy Council, May 6, 1773, for the proposed Vandalia charter which contains references to “other colonies.” The report is in the Ohio Company Papers. 87 See Pownall’s p!an in O’Callaghan, New York CoZoniaZ Documents, VI, 893-97. New Western Colony Schemes 305

tration of new settlements to the union government, stipulating that it provide for their rule until their independent status as colonies had been established.88 In every case, temporary arrangements while the colonies were being settled and organized were implicit, if not explicit, in their proponents' plans. Also implied in the proposals for new western colonies was the supposition that the western country would eventually be subdivided entirely into new commonwealths. Several of the new colony schemes proposed the establishment of more than one new colony at a time. If any one of the projected new colonies had been erected, it seems likely that others would have followed upon the precedent set by the first The suggestion of separate interior colonies constituted, therefore, an important departure from the old process of irregular peripheral expansion by the individual colonies, in favor of an organized advance approach to western settlement. This was an important step in the direction of the future territorial The proposals for new western colonies reflected, moreover, a growing tendency in American political thinking. Basically, this was the abandonment of provincialism in American politics in favor of the view that all the colonies formed integral parts of a single national community and their inhabitants one people. With regard to the western country, this meant that the land should belong not in parcels to the individual colonies (or some of them), but to the whole union.e1 This trend of thought would give birth after the Revolution to the federalized structure and unity of the United States, and to the territorial system as well. The destiny of the western country had become an issue inseparable from the other questions arising in the years just before the eruption of the Revolution: the future of American governmental institutions, and the relations of the individual colonies to each other and to the central authority of the empire as a

88 Albany Plan of Union, Labaree, Franklin Papers, V, 387-92. s9This question is, of course, conjectural, because of the outbreak of the American Revolution right in the middle of several efforts to found new colonies. 90 The Continental Congress produced its resolutions calling for the cession of the western country and for the erection of the new states in part upon the consideration of the many petitions it received from the Vandalia, Indiana, Illinois, and other land companies. See the Journals 01 Congress, XVIII, 916, for the resolution of October 10, 1780, declaring the intention of Congress to ask for cessions of the state claims to western lands and to provide for eventual western statehood. 9lIt is noteworthy that Virginians, from the state having the most con- vincingly established and largest western claim, and Pennsylvanians, from a state without a western claim, participated in comparable numbers in the schemes for the nepv western colonies. From Virginia, there were the Lees and Washing tons, for example; from Pennsylvania, the two Franklins, George Croghan, Samuel Wharton, William Trent, the Gratz family, and others. 9zFor example, the Quebec Act of 1774, which incorporated the Old North- west into the province of Quebec, was popularly damned in the English speaking colonies as one of the oppressive "Intolerable Acts!' The Quebec Act is in A. 306 Indiana Magazine of History When the Continental Congress, following the extinction of British authority in the colonies, inherited the full weight of the western problem, it found it one of the principal issues with which it had to deal. The schemes for new western colonies must be regarded as an important phase in the development of American constitutionalism. In a general way they exemplified the unifying forces rising from beneath the surface of pre-Revolutionary America ; and they provided the background for, and a preview of, one of the more distinguished political achievements of the revolutionary United States-the territorial system, as provided for in the Ordinance of 1787.

Shortt and A. G. Doughty, eds., Canadian Archives: Doctbments Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791 (Ottawa, 1918).