Sea to Shining Sea…Eventually

The photo above is of a map from 1755 that shows the extent of the British holdings in North America. And yes, if you look close you will see that many of the colonies stretched well beyond what is their western border today. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia do not stretch all the way to the Pacific ocean, but for a time they did. Most of the original colonial charters didn’t set a fixed western boundary for the colonies

Do you mean to tell me that you never heard of the Pennamite–Yankee Wars? Three times between 1769 and 1784 men from Pennsylvania and Connecticut faced off in the Wyoming Valley near the north branch of the Susquehanna River because each claimed it as their own. (Eventually, it ended up with Pennsylvania.)

Or in the early 1700’s when New York and Connecticut nearly came to blows over their border? Or Connecticut and Rhode Island (Which flared up in 2003)? Don’t think that Massachusetts avoided conflict with them either. Come to think of it Connecticut, for being such a small colony, sure did like to scrap.

The map above was compiled by John Mitchell. He was commissioned by the British Board of Trade to put together a comprehensive map of all their holdings in North America. He was given access to every existing map and chart as well as journals and colonial charters. From that, he put together the map above.

When finished it was found to place a large amount of territory into a dispute with France. This fact was used as a propaganda tool to help incite the French and Indian War.

When the American Revolution ended it was this map that the main parties used to work out the borders for the new United States of America.