History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 81

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 81

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But France was not the ouly claimant to the valleys of the Ohio and Missis- sippi. In 1497, more than a year before any Spanish navigator had touched the mainland of the American Continent, and twentyseven years before Verrazano, the first French explorer, discovered the castern coast of North America, John Cabot and his son, sailing under a patent granted by Henry VII, which authorized them as vassals of the King to take possession of any territories they might dis- cover, and erect thereon the English banner, skirted along the greater portion of the eastern shores of what is now the United States." The extent of coast explored by them is a disputed question the solution of which is not important in the present discussion. By reason of this discovery England laid claim to all the territories between the Atlantic coast so discovered and the Pacific Ocean, then commonly termed the South Sea. So little interest, however, did she manifest in her western acquisition that one hundred and ten years elapsed before she planted at Jamestown her first colony, but within that period the spirit of adventure grew apace, and her maritime superiority became assured.18 When coloniza- tion began it progressed rapidly, especially as compared with the French settle- ments. The second charter of the London Company, granted in 1609, gave to the Virginia colony a territory having a coast frontage of four hundred miles, of which Old Point Comfort was the centre, and extending " from sea to sea."19 The second charter of the Plymouth Company, granted in 1620, conferred upon that

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LANDS AND LAND TITLES.

company the territory lying between the fortieth and the fortyeighth parallels of north latitude, and extending " from sea to sca."" In other words, the territory included in those two royal grants, extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from a line drawn dne west from the vicinity of Cape Fear to a line drawn east and west through a point a little north of Quebec.

England did not base her claim to the Ohio Valley upon the right of discovery alone. The Iroquois Indians who were hostile to the French, and long prevented French explorations towards the south and southwest, were in the main friendly to the English. They claimed by right of conquest ownership of the lands cast of the Mississipppi between the Lakes and the Cumberland Mountains. In 1684 they sought the protection of King Charles and the Duke of York ; and in the Treaty of Utrecht France acknowledged the Five Nations as " subject to the dominion of Great Britain." A conference was held by the Oneidas and Mohawks in 1701 with English commissioners. The minutes of that meeting recite that those tribes placed their hunting grounds, which extended to Lake Nipissing, under English protection. In 1726 the Iroquois confirmed that cession by treaty. The land so conveyed lay north of Lakes Erie and Ontario and east of Lake Huron, and was about eight hundred miles in length by four hundred miles in width. In 1744 the Iroquois relinquished to Maryland their claims to lands within that colony and conveyed the entire West by decd to Virginia. England therefore claimed owner- ship to the Northwest Territory and the lower portion of Canada, not only by reason of the Cabot voyages, but on account of the Iroquois cessions and treaties.21

England was slow in occupying the lands west of the Alleghanies. IIer settlers on the Atlantic coast were not, as a rule, adventurers. Colonies were planted all along the Atlantic shore before the English broke the barriers of the mountains, but at length English subjects found their way along the Mohawk to the trapping grounds about the Lakes. To prevent these English incursions and protect the territories claimed by them, the French erected Fort Detroit. It was not until 1748 that the English planted their first settlements west of the mountains, at Draper's Meadows " A year later the Ohio Company was organ- ized to traffic in land and furs, and obtained an additional grant for half a mil- hon acres between the Kanawha and the Monongahela. Still another year later they sent Christopher Gist to make explorations in the Ohio Valley, and about the same time settlers were making their way through the Cumberland Gap into Ken- tucky and Tennessee." All along the chain of " The Great Mountains" the English- speaking people were seeking entrance to the West. The conflicting claims of France and England rendered a contest inevitable. Negotiations to establish the boundary line between these rival powers proved unsuccessful. The western boundaries of the British dominions were to be drawn by the sword. To protect their possessions the French constructed a line of forts extending south ward from Presque Isle to Fort Duquesne. The conflict between France and England had begun, and when Washington's command was withdrawn from Fort Necessity the entire Mississippi Valley was left in the possession of the French.4 Braddock's campaign for the reduction of Fort Duquesne ended in disaster and gloom ; but at this juncture William Pitt became the controlling spirit in the councils of the Eng-

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

lish nation and resolved on a war of conquest for the reduction of the French pos- sessions. War resulted between England and France on both continents, and on both England triumphed. On the thirteenth day of September, 1759, on the Heights of Abraham, overlooking the spot on which, more than two hundred and fifty years before, Champlain had founded the first permanent French settlement . in America, the armies of Wolfe and Montcalm determined the question, adversely to the French, as to whether the Ohio Valley should bear the impress of English or of French civilization. The Treaty of Peace, concluded in 1763, fixed the west- ern boundary line of the English possessions at the middle of the Mississippi River, excepting that France retained New Orleans and the island on which it stands. Thus passed the title to all the lands in the Northwest Territory to the British Crown. The Treaty of Paris, made in 1763, contained the following passages :

His Most Christian Majesty (France) cedes and guarantees to His Brittannic Majesty, in full right, Canada with all its dependencies. His Brittannic Majesty, on his side, agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabitants of Canada; he will consequently give the most precise and the most effectual orders that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit. His Brittannie Majesty further agrees that the French inhabitants, or others who had been subject to the Most Christian King in Canada, may retire with all safety and freedom wherever they shall think proper; the term limited for this emigration shall be fixed to the space of eighteen months from the exchange of ratifications of this treaty.

In order to reestablish peace on solid and durable foundations, and to remove forever all subject of dispute with regard to the limits of the British and French territories on the continents of America, it is agreed that for the future the confines between the dominions of his Brittannic Majesty and those of his Most Christian Majesty in that part of the world shall be fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi from its source to the river Iberville, and from thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river to the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea ; and for this purpose the Most Christian King cedes in full right and guarantees to his Brittannic Majesty the river and fort of the Mobile, and everything which he possesses or ought to possess on the left side of the river Mississippi, except the town of New Orleans and the island on which it is situate, which shall remain to France, provided that the navigation of the river Mississippi shall be equally free as well to the subjects of Great Britain as to those of France, in its whole breadth and length from its source to the sea ; and expressly that part which is between the said island of New Orleans and the right bank of that river, as well as the passage both in and out of its month.25

If, as has been stated, " the triumph of Wolfe marks the greatest turning point as yet discoverable in modern history,"26 it will be pardonable to panse for a moment to consider the deep significance of England's triumph. Her colonists, unlike the Spaniards, were troubled but little with the gold fever. Though not untouched with religious zeal or indifferent to the salvation of Indian souls, the conversion of the Indians was not with them a prime motive as with the French. They built towns, cleared away forests, tilled farms, constructed printing presses, built churches, fostered trade and manufactures, discussed politics, strove for civil and religious liberty ; in short, laid deep and well the foundations of future great- DesN. Although not entirely devoid of religious intolerance, their doors stood open to receive the persecuted of other lands. The French settlement at Quebec antedated that of Jamestown almost a century, yet the total population of the French settle-

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ments in 1754, was only onefourteenth that of the thirteen colonies.27 The French population south of the Lakes and between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at that time is estimated at ten thousand.28 Twenty years after its founding Quebec had but one hundred and five inhabitants and but two families that supported them- selves by tilling the soil." The Huguenots, the most inclined of all the French to colonization, were expelled from the French colonies and from entrance to the French possessions.30 The French Jesuits wished no white men at their missions and sought to exclude even fur traders.31 The French King discouraged coloni- zation.39 French fur traders opposed settlements because they interfered with their business.33 Parkman speaks eloquently of the difference in the characteris- ties of the two classes of settlement as follows :

In the valley of the St. Lawrence and along the coast of the Atlantic adverse principles contended for the mastery. . . . The settlements along the margin of the St. Lawrence were like a camp where an army lay at rest ready for the march or the battle, and where war and adventure, not trade and tillage, seemed the chief aims of life. The lords of the soil were petty nobles, for the most part soldiers, or the sons of soldiers, proud and ostentatious, thriftless and poor ; and the people were their vassals. Over every cluster of small white houses glittered the sacred emblem of the cross. The church, the convent, and the roadside shrine were seen at every turn; and in the towns and villages one met each moment the black robe of the Jesuit, the gray garb of the Recollect, and the formal habit of the Ursuline nun. . . . The English colonist, with thoughtful brow and limbs hardened with toil ; calling no man master yet howing reverently to the law which he himself had made; patient and laborious, and seeking for the solid comforts rather than the ornaments of life; no lover of war, yet, if need were, fighting with a stubborn, indomitable conrage, and then bending onee more with the steadfast energy to his farm or his merchandise - such a man might well be deemed the very pith and marrow of a common wealth."34

England's triumph, however, was fraught with great danger to herself. The treaty of 1763 gave to her all the territory between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. Her conquest of the French possessions was attributable, in large degree, to American valor. When William Pitt, who thoroughly comprehended the American question, entered the Newcastle Ministry, his sympathies went out towards the colonies. He was willing not ouly to use and treat them respectfully but to give them competent officers for their armies and to counsel with their leg- islatures as to the conduct of the war. He gathered together their forces, and Fort Duquesne, Northern New York, Louisburgh, Ticonderoga and Quebec passed irretrievably from France. The strength exhibited by the colonies in the war at once challenged the admiration of England and excited her fears. They had united in the prosecution of the war and had learned somewhat of their united strength. Differences already exisled between them and the mother country. The newly acquired territory became another source of contention between them and England. When the French and English ministers were discussing the treaty of 1763, the English minister was warned that the cession of Canada would be followed by the independence of the colonies.35 " It is generally believed," says Professor Johnston, "that the abandonment of North America by France was the result of a profound policy; that she foresaw that her retirement would be followed by the independence of the English colonies, and that Great

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

Britain's temporary aggrandizement would result in a more profound abase- ment. Vergennes and Choiseul both stated the case in just this way in 1763."36 The policy adopted by England subsequent to the treaty, with reference to the newly acquired territory, excited the keenest hostility on the part of the colonists. Unlimited western expansion was their main object in prosecut- ing the war. There existed among them an ever-increasing conviction that the newly acquired territory belonged not to the Crown, or to any colony, but to the people whose united efforts rescued it from France. To the great disappointment of the colonies the settlement of the West was closed to them by royal proclama- tion made October 7, 1763, whereby all purchases and settlements by them west of the sources of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic were prohibited unless by the King's permission. By that proclamation those who had already settled in such territory were directed to remove. The reason assigned for this restrictive policy was the preservation of peace with the Indians and the safety of the colonists. Bancroft attributes the policy to a " fear that colonists in so remote a region could not be held in dependence. England by war had conquered the West, and a min- istry had come which dared not make use of the conquest."37

The Quebec act, enacted in 1774, included in that province all the territory west of the Alleghanies, north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi, and south of Hud- son's Bay ; abolished the right of trial by jury in civil cases within that territory - a right dear to the heart of every Englishman ; adopted the French system of laws; abrogated the treaty provisions of 1763, securing to that territory representative government; vested the power of taxation in a council appointed by the Crown ; secured to the Catholic clergy all the rights enjoyed by them under French dominion, and restored to the Catholic Church all the lands originally held by them in that province.38 This act was considered by the colonists as practically establishing the Catholic religion in the newly created province, and thereby excited the hostility of both the Episcopalians and the Puritans. This measure, the Bos- ton Port Act and the Massachusetts Act were precipitated on the colonies within the same year. In the Declaration of Independence the colonies complained of their sovereign " for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies." The colonies refused to respect the restrictive policy of the home government. Dunmore, the royal Governor of Virginia, in defiance of the Quebec Act, in 1774, strengthened Virginia's claim to the Northwest by invasion. Prior thereto he had made purchases and surveys of western lands. A patent for a company which was to purchase and locate 2,400,000 acres of land south of the Ohio had been prepared and was ready for the King's signature when all negotiations for the colonization of western territory under authority of the Crown was terminated by the commencement of the struggle for indepen- dence.39

At the beginning of that struggle there was a well defined sentiment in favor of the nationalization of western lands, but that sentiment was not universal. Dur- ing nearly the whole of that eventful period one of the foremost questions was

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LANDS AND LAND TITLES.

that relating to the disposition of those lands. It provoked long discussions, excited feelings of hostility between the States, prevented the adoption of the Articles of Confederation until the war was well nigh ended, and excited a lively hope among the enemies of the Confederation that a permanent union of the States could not be effected. The happy solution of the question is attributable to the wise statesmanship and exalted patriotism of the men who directed the coun- eils of the several States and of the Union. As regards western lands, the States were divided into two classes. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware were nonclaimants of such lands. The remaining seven States each claimed land west of the mountains. The claimant States were not only the more numerous but far surpassed the nonclaimant States in wealth and population. But these seven States were not all agreed by reason of overlapping claims. It will therefore be well to ascertain what States were claimants of the Northwest Territory, and upon what such pretensions were based.

By reason of the Iroquois treaties, New York laid elaim to all the territory between the Cumberland Mountains and the Lower Lakes, and between the Missis- sippi River and the western boundaries of Pennsylvania and Virginia.40 In 1630, the Plymouth Colony conveyed Connecticut to its President, the Earl of War- wiek. Connecticut then had a uniform width of one hundred and twenty miles and extended from ocean to ocean. On April 20, 1662, Charles II. granted to Connecticut a charter which fixed its eastern and western boundaries at Narragan- sett Bay and the Pacific Ocean, respectively, and its width at sixtytwo miles. The southern boundary was the fortyfirst parallel of north latitude. Connecticut, therefore, laid claim to that part of the Northwest Territory north of that parallel and south of fortytwo degrees and two minutes north latitude." The territory claimed by Massachusetts lay north of that claimed by Connecticut.

The grant of James I., in 1609, to Virginia, contained the following language : "All those lands, countries, 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 seacoast to the northward two hundred miles, and from the said Point of Cape Comfort all along the seacoast to the southward two hundred miles, and all that space and circuit of land lying from the seacoast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." These boundaries have never been satisfactorily defined and are searcely, if at all, intelligible. The language employed designed a west and northwest line; if the northwest line should start from the southern point on the coast, the shape of Virginia would be triangular, as follows :

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

Northern Point.

N. W.

200 m. | 200 m.

Point Comfort.

Southein Point.

The territory granted, if the above construction be correct, would not greatly exceed that included within the present limits of Virginia. The convergence of the lines, west and northwest, renders impossible an extension to the South Sea. If the northwestern line should start from the northern point on the coast, the territory included within the grant would be shaped as follows :42

N. W. Line.

Northern Point.

Point Comfort.

West Line,

200 m, | 200 m.

Southern Point.

If the latter figure correctly represents the meaning of the charter, the whole of Ohio, and in fact all the Northwest Territory, were comprised within the limits of Virginia. The western boundary would be the South Sca, or the Pacific Ocean. This latter construction was generally conceded to be the correct one, and was the basis of Virginia's claim to the Northwest. The constitution of that State adopted in 1776, in which were formally ceded to Maryland, North Carolina, and Pennsyl- vania the lands which had been detached from Virginia by the King, contained the following language: "The western and northern extent of Virginia shall in all other respects stand as fixed by the charter of 1609, and by the public Treaty of Peace between the courts of Britain and France in the year 1763, unless by act of this legislature one or more governments be established westward of the Alleghany Mountains; and no purchase of land shall be made of the Indian nations but on the behalf of the public by anthority of the General Assembly." Here is a positive declaration of ownership of the Northwest Territory by reason of the charter of 1609. Virginia's pretensions necessarily conflicted with the claims of Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut.

The discussion between the States as to the western lands began in framing the Articles of Confederation. The first draft of the Articles contained a provi-

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LANDS AND LAND TITLES.

sion for restricting the western boundaries of States elaiming to extend to the South Sea, or to the Mississippi River, and for the formation of new colonies in western territory. That provision did not appear, however, in the Articles as completed, but on the contrary there was a clause stipulating " that no state shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States." The Articles were submitted to the States and ratified by ten of them in July, 1778. The consent of all the States was necessary for their adoption. Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware, three of the smallest States and all of them nonclaimants of western lands, withheld assent. The Maryland delegates renewed the proposition contained in the first draft of the Artieles of Confederation relating to western lands, but it was voted down. On November 25, 1778, New Jersey approved the Articles, relying on the fairness and candor of the other States to remove the then existing inequalities as to territory, and through its delegates submitted to Congress a representation which recited that the boundaries and limits of the States ought to be fixed and made known, and that, as the war was undertaken for the defense of all the States, the territory acquired during the war should be the property of all the States, and that all unpatented land should be utilized to defray the expenses of the war and for other general purposes. The propositions so submitted were rejected by Congress. On February 22, 1779, Delaware ratified the Articles of Confederation. On the day following, its delegates presented to Congress a series of resolutions which declared that limits should be fixed to those States that elaimed to the Mississippi River or the South Sea, and that as the extensive country lying beyond the frontiers had been gained from Great Britain and the Indians by the blood and treasure of all, that State was entitled in common with the other States to the same, and that it ought to be a common estate to be granted out on terms beneficial to the United States. Congress per- mitted the resolutions to be filed but expressly declared " that it shall never be considered as admitting any claim by the same set up or intended to be set up." Maryland then stood alone and pluckily determined not to assent to the Articles of Confederation until her objections to the western land policy were removed. She at first submitted to Congress a declaration reciting her reasons for refusing to ratify the Articles. Later she submitted instructions to her delegates to be laid before Congress, which set out at length her views regarding the western lands. The following extracts from those instructions embody the principal argu- ments which they contain :

Although the pressure of immediate calamities, the dread of their continuance from the appearance of disunion, and some other peculiar circumstances may have induced some States to accede to the present confederation contrary to their interests and judgments, it requires no great measure of foresight to predict that when those causes cease to operate the States which have thus acceded to the confederation will consider it as no longer binding. and will eagerly embrace the first occasion of asserting their just rights and securing their independence. Is it possible that those States who are ambitiously grasping at territories to which, in our judgment, they have not the least shadow of exclusive right, will use with greater moderation the increase of wealth and power derived from those territories when acquired, than what they have displayed in their endeavors to acquire them ? We think not. .. . Virginia, by selling on the most moderate terms a small proportion of the lands in

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 81

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202