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Article: Western Lands
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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WESTERN LANDS
WESTERN LANDS.
When the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, seven had overlapping and conflicting claims to western lands. These claims, which extended to the Mississippi River, had been cutoff by the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774. But, with independence, the states revived them, and Virginia undertook a campaign to recover its territory, which included the present states of Kentucky and West Virginia, and the territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers. The claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York cut across this northwest territory of Virginia. The claims of North and South Carolina and Georgia ...