How Colonial Charters Continued To Haunt The New Republic

Articles of Confederation via Wikimedia Commons.

The Treaty of Paris may have resolved the conflict between America and Great Britain, but it left unaddressed the conflicts between America’s new states. United in their struggle for independence, they were far less united in determining where one state’s claims ended and another’s began.

King George no longer ruled the former colonies. The legacy of the colonial charters, however, continued to shape the thinking of the individual states. For more than a century, English monarchs had granted overlapping charters across North America, often with only the vaguest understanding of the geography involved. The Treaty of Paris transferred vast stretches of Britain’s former frontier to the United States, but it also revived old questions those charters had never fully answered.

America had overthrown the king. It had not escaped the king’s paperwork.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Greater Western New York. Although some colonial disputes had been settled before the Revolution, others remained unresolved. In the years following independence, Connecticut still claimed a narrow strip along New York’s Southern Tier. Massachusetts maintained a claim to virtually all of Western New York beyond the state’s settled frontier. New York, for its part, insisted the land belonged to New York.

These were among the unresolved legacies of Britain’s colonial system, precisely the kinds of problems the Articles of Confederation struggled to address.

Before independence, in the case of a dispute, the colonies appealed to London, the provincial governors appealed to London, and the various colonial boards and commissions appealed to London. Ultimately, the Crown served as referee. And its word was final.

Sometimes the King’s decision worked, as in the settlement of New York’s boundary with Pennsylvania. Sometimes it failed, as in the long-running dispute that ultimately produced Vermont. But, and this is the important point, a mechanism for resolving such disputes existed.

After the Revolution, it didn’t. Independence had removed the referee.

Congress claimed authority to settle disputes between states, but the events of the postwar years would reveal how difficult that authority could be to exercise in practice. The struggle to resolve competing claims would expose the strengths—and the weaknesses—of the new republic.

In the immediate years following the Treaty of Paris, two distinct approaches emerged for resolving interstate conflicts. First was the “by the book” approach. This was simply the Federal government, under the Articles of Confederation, stepping in as the new referee, supplanting the King of England.

In the case of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, a congressional decree reversed an earlier royal decision.¹ Rather than settling the matter, the ruling helped spark the Third Pennamite-Yankee War in 1784. Even Ethan Allen—the same frontier agitator who had helped create Vermont—appeared on the scene to support claims that Wyoming might become a separate state of its own.²

The second avenue for resolving interstate conflicts was the Vermont example. Vermont simply disregarded previously established boundaries and seceded from the Province of New York. Even after the Revolutionary War was settled, the State of New York continued to lay claim to the former Province’s eastern territory, with its governor complaining specifically about the “outrage committed by Ethan Allen” as late as 1782.³ Vermont ignored this claim, functioning as its own independent republic.⁴ More troubling from New York’s perspective, the arrangement appeared to be working.

For New York State, these lessons proved two things. First, it could not rely on the Federal Government to act as a referee in any practical sense. Second, colonial charters alone could not guarantee a favorable outcome. And any delay in resolution carried risks.

Vermont was not New York’s only lingering charter dispute, but it was the one that most clearly demonstrated the dangers of delay. New York had two other unresolved claims dating from the colonial era. Unlike Vermont, however, those disputes lay in the unsettled frontier of Western New York.

The infamous “Connecticut Gore” comprised approximately 2° of latitude along the southern border of New York State.⁵ Compared to its dispute with Pennsylvania, this thin sliver of land (just under 140 miles), represented a lower priority for Connecticut.

Or New York, for that matter. The Connecticut claim was an annoyance, but not an immediate threat. New York had bigger concerns than a narrow strip of disputed land along its southern border.

New York was not afraid of the ghost of the Connecticut Charter. The ghost of the Massachusetts Charter was another matter entirely.

And there was no referee. The Crown was gone. Congress had demonstrated it had limited effectiveness. Vermont proved the danger of delay. Connecticut’s claim festered. Yet Massachusetts continued to assert its interest in virtually all of Western New York.

In short, there was no obvious mechanism to resolve the conflict between New York and Massachusetts. There was no question that a solution was needed. There was a question as to who would create that solution.

And this was a dispute no one could easily solve. Unlike Pennsylvania, this was not merely a boundary issue. Unlike Vermont, this was not a rebellion by settlers against New York authority. Unlike Wyoming County, Congress could not easily impose a resolution or law.

Both states possessed credible arguments rooted in colonial charters. Both also saw enormous potential in the Genesee Country and had little incentive to surrender their position.

Reports from Sullivan’s returning soldiers drew excited interest in Western New York. The Genesee Country promised fertile land, valuable trade routes, and access to the Great Lakes. Yet despite its apparent promise, the region remained trapped between competing visions of ownership.

The stakes were high. With access to Lake Erie and the continent beyond, Western New York represented millions of acres whose future seemed almost limitless. Settlement would eventually come. And whoever prevailed in the New York/Massachusetts dispute would gain immense advantages and help shape the future of America.

No king remained to settle the matter. Congress lacked the strength to impose a solution. The states themselves had yet to reach an agreement. Governments argued over maps, charters, boundaries, and authority.

But there was a reality missing from this calculus.

The land itself remained beyond their possession.

The Seneca still occupied the Genesee Country.

¹ The Historical Record of Wyoming Valley, The Wilkes-Barre Record, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1897, p. 167.
² Clarke, H.W., Report of the Regents’ Boundary Commission, Weed, Parsons and Company, London, 1886, p. 425.
³ O’Callaghan, E.B., The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. IV, Charles Van Benthuysen., Albany, p. 609.
⁴ Hall, Benjamin, History of eastern Vermont, from its earliest settlement to the close of the eighteenth century, D. Appleton & Co., NY, p.481.
⁵ Osgood, Howard L., “The Title of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase,” Rochester Historical Society Publication Fund Series Vol. I, 1892, p. 27.