chapter 5._

The text of the Proclamation of 1763 is in

_Force's American Archives, series 4, volume 1, page 172._

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1763-1764. Pontiac's War.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1765-1768. The Indian Treaties of German Flats and Fort Stanwix. Boundary arrangement with the Six Nations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1774. The territorial claims of Virginia. Lord Dunmore's War.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774; also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1774. Embraced in the Province of Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1778-1779. Its conquest from the British by the Virginian General Clark, and its organization under the jurisdiction of Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 CLARK'S CONQUEST.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1781-1786. Cession of the conflicting territorial claims of the States to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA:A. D. 1784. Jefferson's plan for new States.

"The condition of the northwestern territory had long been under the consideration of the House [the Congress of the Confederation]. Several committees had been appointed, and several schemes listened to, for laying out new States, but it was not till the middle of April [1784], that a resolution was finally reached. One plan was to divide the ceded and purchased lands into seventeen States. Eight of these were to lie between the banks of the Mississippi and a north and south line through the falls of the Ohio. Eight more were to be marked out between this line and a second one parallel to it, and passing through the western bank of the mouth of the Great Kanawha. What remained was to form the seventeenth State. But few supporters were found for the measure, and a committee, over which Jefferson presided, was ordered to place before Congress a new scheme of division. Chase and Howe assisted him; and the three devised a plan whereby the prairie-lands were to be parted out among ten new States. The divisions then marked down have utterly disappeared, and the names given to them become so forgotten that nine tenths of the population which has, in our time, covered the whole region with wealthy cities and prosperous villages, and turned it from a waste to a garden, have never in their lives heard the words pronounced. Some were borrowed from the Latin and some from the Greek; while others were Latinized forms of the names the Indians had given to the rivers. The States were to be, as far as possible, two degrees of latitude in width and arranged in three tiers. The Mississippi and a meridian through the falls of the Ohio included the western tier. The meridian through the falls of the Ohio and a second through the mouth of the Great Kanawha were the boundaries of the middle tier. Between this and the Pennsylvania West Line lay the third tier. That vast tract stretching from the 45th parallel of latitude to the Lake of the Woods, and dense with forests of pine, of hickory, and of oak, they called Sylvania. {2379} It was the northern State of the western tier. To the long tongue of land separating the water of Michigan from the waters of Erie and Huron they gave the name Cherronesus. A narrow strip, not more than two degrees of latitude in width, and stretching from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, was called Michigania. As marked down on their rude maps, Michigania lay under Sylvania, in the very heart of what is now Wisconsin. South of this to the 41st parallel of latitude was Assenisipia, a name derived from Assenisipi, the Indian title of the river now called the Rock. Eastward, along the shore of Lake Erie, the country was named Metropotamia. It took the name Mother of Rivers from the belief that within its boundary were the fountains of many rivers, the Muskingum, the two Miamis of Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, the Sandusky, and the Miami of the Lake. That part of Illinois between the 39th and 41st parallels was called, from the river which waters it, Illinoia. On to the east was Saratoga, and beyond this lay Washington, a broad and level tract shut in by the Ohio river, the waters of the lake, and the boundaries of Pennsylvania. Under Illinoia and Saratoga, and stretching along the Ohio, was the ninth State. Within its confines the waters of the Wabash, the Sawane, the Tanissee, the Illinois, and the Ohio were mingled with the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri. The committee therefore judged that a fitting name would be Polypotamia. Pelisipia was the tenth State. It lay to the east of Polypotamia, and was named from Pelisipi, a term the Cherokees often applied to the river Ohio. At the same time that the boundaries of the new States were defined, a code of laws was drawn up which should serve as a constitution for each State, till 20,000 free inhabitants acquired the right of self-government. The code was in no wise a remarkable performance, yet there were among its articles two which cannot be passed by in silence. One provided for the abolition of slavery after the year 1800. The other announced that no one holding an hereditary title should ever become a citizen of the new States. Each was struck out by the House. Yet each is deserving of notice. The one because it was the first attempt at a national condemnation of slavery, the other because it was a public expression of the dread with which our ancestors beheld the growth of the Society of the Cincinnati."

_J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States,