Confederation Years

Successful British settlement of the New World began in 1607 at Jamestown on the coast of present-day Virginia. By the mid-1700s, thirteen colonies, under British control, had been established. They included Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire (the New England colonies); Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware (the Middle colonies); and Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia (the Southern colonies).

During the first half of the 1700s, Britain paid little attention to its colonies. British leaders were preoccupied with wars in Europe, particularly with France. By the early 1750s, the French had claimed a large area of land west of the thirteen British colonies, and they were developing a profitable fur trade in that region. Britain took notice and moved its battle with France across the Atlantic to North America. From 1754 to 1763, Britain and France battled for control of the Old Northwest, an area that included land between the Ohio River and the Canadian border, extending west to the Mississippi River. Britain finally won this battle, known as the French and Indian War, and in February 1763 France surrendered all of the Old Northwest to the victorious British.

During the war, Britain began interfering with and taxing the colonists. Britain basically began running the colonial governments much more strictly through special appointments from Britain instead of leaving governance largely to the colonists as they had before the war and requiring colonists to provide housing in their homes for British soldiers. Britain continued these practices even after the war was over to exert greater governmental control over the colonists and force them to pay for the past and possible future expenses in defending the colonies from foreign and Native American threats. The colonists greatly resented Britain's attempts to dominate and control the colonies. By 1776, they had built up so much resentment that they decided to issue a formal statement called the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration, signed by delegates to the Continental Congress on July 4 and read to the public on July 8, stated that the colonies were separating from Britain to form their own country. It announced that the colonies would henceforth be called states.

Americans waged a war for independence from Britain, the American Revolution, from 1775 to 1783. Immediately after issuing the Declaration and while the war raged on, the Continental Congress began forming a plan for governing the new country. Congressional delegates began to write the country's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation. On November 3, 1777, the Continental Congress agreed to the completed Articles, which included a preamble (introduction) and thirteen individual articles (sections). Congress sent the Articles to the states for ratification (approval).

Having just declared their independence from the controlling British government of King George III (1738–1820; reigned 1760–1820), the authors of the Articles deliberately established a weak central government and left most power to the states. The Articles called the union of states a friendship league, in which the states kept a large degree of independence from each other and the new central government. All states had to approve the Articles before they could go into effect.

A chief obstacle to approving the Articles was the states' disagreement over ownership and use of the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. Seven states held land claims to various portions of those western lands. Six states, including Maryland, held no claims and insisted the western claims be turned over to Congress so the land could be managed for the benefit of all the states. In a resolution issued October 10, 1780, Congress urged states to turn over all claims. Three of the states holding claims, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia, indicated in 1781 that they would begin the process of surrendering their claims to Congress. The process of surrendering lands was called cession. Convinced the issue would be resolved, Maryland, the last state to hold back from approving the Articles, signed on March 1, 1781. As soon as Maryland signed the Articles of Confederation, they were officially in force.

About the same time the Articles were being debated in the states, a turning point occurred in the American Revolution. In October 1777, British troops surrendered to the American army, called the Continental Army, at Saratoga, New York. This victory convinced the French that the Americans might be able to defeat Britain. On February 6, 1778, France completed negotiations with the United States to provide military aid and loans to the Continental Army. This alliance with France boosted the Continental Army to victory. On September 3, 1783, the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution and making America's independence official. Under the terms of the treaty, the British granted the United States lands extending west to the Mississippi River, north to the Great Lakes, and south to the northern border of Florida, an area controlled at the time by Spain.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the Continental Congress faced several difficult issues concerning the western lands stretching to the Mississippi River. By September 1783, only New York had actually ceded, or relinquished, its western land claims to Congress. It was crucial for Congress to secure the remaining claims; otherwise the confederation of states might split apart. Also Congress had to decide how to divide the western lands and how to sell the divided portions to settlers.

The first excerpt in this chapter, "Virginia's Cession of Western Lands to the United States," describes the agreements Virginia made with Congress that allowed the cession to go forward. The terms of the Virginia Cession provided an example to the other states giving up claims. Virginia's leadership was crucial. If Virginia had refused to surrender its claims, other states might have also refused. Without the surrender of western claims in which seven states could economically benefit from holding western lands and six could not, the conflicting issues of ownership and control could have split the union apart.

The second excerpt, "Land Ordinance of 1785," directs how the western lands should be surveyed and sold by the central government after the seven states turned the lands over to the national government. It is one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States. Over the next one hundred years, this process of organized land surveys would be used for surveying land all the way to thePacific Ocean. Few settlers would be interested in land purchases until later in the 1790s after Native Americans hostile to the spread of settlement onto their traditional lands had been subdued.

The third excerpt, "The Northwest Ordinance," was passed by Congress in 1787. It outlined a three-step process for a territory to become a state. The Ordinance originally applied to land north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River, but it served as a model for most territories entering statehood through the next two centuries. The Ordinance also called for the Northwest Territory to be divided into three to five territories that would eventually become states with representation in Congress equal to the original thirteen states. This equal treatment would avoid conflicts between the old and new states and between the East and West. The older established Eastern states could not dominate the new Western states. Importantly, the Ordinance banned slavery in the states carved from the Northwest Territory and promised to always act in "good faith" with the Native Americans in acquiring their land.