Vandalia colony
With Vandalia Colony a planned fourteenth British is colony in North America referred to the west of the Allegheny Mountains of southern Ohio Rivers was. The area of the new colony encompassed large parts of the later US states of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky . Point Pleasant , West Virginia, was to become the capital of Vandalia. Although the colony was never realized, the planning was typical of land speculation that was rampant in 18th century England and North America. The proponents of the project included such famous people as Benjamin Franklin .
The plan arose out of a land offer, labeled Indiana , by the Six Nations to a group of Pennsylvania merchants in 1768 to compensate them for losses in the Pontiac rebellion . Samuel Wharton and William Trent, agents of the Indiana Company, went to England in the spring of 1769 and got the king's approval for the land takeover. On December 27, 1769, the Grand Ohio Company was founded, which finally in 1772 received approval to purchase an additional area of about 20 million acres (about 8100 km) south of the Ohio River to the confluence of the Scioto River .
The new colony was called Vandalia and was to have its own government along the lines of the other thirteen colonies. Although many of the members of the Grand Ohio Company held high positions in the British hierarchy, the project had influential opponents, particularly from circles with rival speculative interests in Virginia who claimed the same territory for themselves. In 1773 the colony seemed imminent when hostilities broke out that led to the American War of Independence . This ended all hopes for an early success. In 1781 Wharton and other like-minded people tried to convince Congress in their favor, but ultimately a strong opposition overruled the efforts to found Vandalia.
Individual evidence
literature
- Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. Western Lands and the American Revolution . New York: Russell & Russell, 1959.
- Bailey, Kenneth P. The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748-1792 . Originally published 1939. Reprinted Lewisburg: Wennawoods Publishing, 2000. ISBN 1-889037-25-7 .
- James, Alfred Procter, The Ohio Company: Its Inner History. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1959.
- Mulkearn, Lois, ed. George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1954. Collection of many original documents, including Christopher Gist's journal.