Borders of Colonial Virginia

The borders of colonial Virginia fluctuated between its original charter in 1606 and America declaring independence in 1776. Initially, the colony primarily existed south of the Potomac River, along the western shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay, and then at its greatest extent, stretched westward to the Pacific Ocean. Often impeding on Native American land , Virginia engaged in border disputes with its neighboring colonies, most notably Pennsylvania and Maryland.¹ Virginia did not resolve some of these disputes until 2003.

In April 1606, King James I issued the Charter of Virginia to the Virginia Company. The charter established the initial boundaries between the thirty-first and forty-third degrees of latitude for colonists to settle and develop plantations on the North American continent. These borders stretched from present-day Cape Fear, North Carolina, and New York City, and extended from “sea to sea.”² Subsequent charters granted by James I both extended the borders southward and eastward into the sea, and also decreased the amount of land claimed by Virginia to the north, which opened settlements by the Massachusetts Bay Company.³

In October 1763, King George III issued a proclamation that created an imaginary line through the Appalachian Mountain range to prohibit colonists from settling on lands west of the boundary. The Proclamation of 1763 aimed to keep colonies such as Virginia tied to the coasts to prevent causing conflicts by further encroaching on Native land.⁴ Despite these legal barriers, Virginia expanded its territorial range past the mountains, placing its new borders up against the Ohio River to the west and the Great Lakes to the north. This shift of boundaries occurred following the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 in which Virginia colonial delegates met with Haudenosaunee representatives to conclude ongoing discussions related to conflicts between colonists and Native people.⁵ Lewis Evans’s 1771 A General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America viz. Virginia highlights the massive westward shift in boundaries claimed by Virginia. The borders indicated on the map did not interfere with Virginia’s neighboring colonies. Although the land claim broke the intent of the Proclamation of 1763 with respect to the lands of Native Americans, the Board of Trade eventually extended the colonial boundary line to the western portion of the Ohio River to allow for the expansion.⁶

Less than a decade following Virginia’s expansion north and west, the governor of the colony, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, set out on a mission to claim land from southwest Pennsylvania. In early 1774, Dunmore occupied the city of Pittsburgh, attached it to the Virginia colony, and renamed Fort Pitt as “Fort Dunmore.”⁷ Dunmore’s reasoning for the annexation was that the land had been recaptured by British forces during the Seven Years’ War, and was therefore entitled to Virginia, a “Crown Colony,” rather than Pennsylvania, which was a proprietary colony.⁸ The conflict escalated to the point that delegates from both Virginia and Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress, including Benjamin Franklin, gave an address requesting that all hostilities be ended, and “all bodies of armed men kept up under either province be dismissed.”⁹ The 1771 map Bowles’s New Pocket Map of the Following Independent States of North America shows the expansion of Virginia into the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.

Virginia’s border disputes also involved the question of water rights. Following American independence, Virginia and Maryland disagreed over ownership of the Potomac River, which separated the two states. The conflict dated to the colonial era, as the charters that originally created the colonies were vague and inconsistent in terms of their respective boundaries. By 1745, Maryland and Virginia claimed different ownership of the land, with Maryland using the south fork of the Potomac River as its southern boundary on the western side of the colony, whereas Virginia used the north fork for its northern boundary. The crown granted Virginia’s claims in 1746, following a survey commissioned to determine the boundary marks in the northern portion of the colony.¹⁰ Robert Orme’s 1768 A map of the country between Will’s Creek & Monongahela River highlights the north fork of the Potomac, which is still in use today as the border between the states.

By 1785, while the initial issue concerning borders of Virginia and Maryland had been resolved, the two state governments recognized the need to establish legal jurisdiction for the navigation and use of water from the Potomac. George Washington invited delegates from Maryland and Virginia to negotiate use of the Potomac River, in what became known as the Mount Vernon Compact of 1785. The Compact gave Maryland full ownership of the Potomac up to the south bank, which was given to Virginia. However, both states were given jurisdiction to use water for public and private purposes.¹¹ Despite the binding agreement, the first between any two states in the history of the United States, the Maryland and Virginia governments continued to dispute ownership of the water until the 2003 Supreme Court case, Virginia v. Maryland. Throughout most of the twentieth century, Maryland did not deny applications from Virginia to use water from the Potomac. However, in 1996, Maryland denied application by the Fairfax County Water Authority to create a water intake station. The Supreme Court decided in favor of Fairfax County, and by extension the Commonwealth of Virginia, by granting full riparian rights, or water rights, to Virginia based on the precedent of the Mount Vernon Compact.¹²

Virginia’s history of border disputes has shaped state boundaries to this day. As the first permanent English colony in the New World, private investors, government officials, and colonial settlers from Virginia sought to expand their territorial claims in all directions. Border challenges did not end when Virginia transitioned from colony to commonwealth. In 1790, Virginia ceded thirty-two square miles towards the creation of a federal capital district as outlined by Article I of the United States Constitution and the Residence Act of 1790.¹³ In March 1847, the Virginia General Assembly voted to retrocede their land from the District of Columbia, followed by an act of Congress that approved the state’s resolution. Virginia’s decision was based on poor economic growth due to competition with nearby Georgetown, loss of voting rights, as well as growing support in Congress to ban slavery in Washington which would threaten enslavers living there.¹⁴ In 1864, Virginia split in two, creating West Virginia as a result of differences over slavery during the Civil War.¹⁵ From its start, the story of Virginia’s boundaries has reflected the larger history of colonial North America and the United States.

Bibliography

Blair, Jim. “Virginia’s 1774 Border Dispute with Pennsylvania.” Baltzer Meyer Historical Society. Last modified May 13, 2023.

Clemons, Josh. “Supreme Court Rules for Virginia in Potomac Conflict.” The National Sea Grant Law Center.

Edelson, S. Max. The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.

King James I. “The First Charter of Virginia.” April 10, 1606. The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906.

Lugarich, Kathleen. “Lord Dunmore’s War.” Heinz History Center.

“Mount Vernon Conference.” Mount Vernon.

Phillips, Karl R. “How Virginia Got Its Boundaries.” Virginia Places.

U.S. Dept. of the Interior. “1768 Boundary Line Treaty of Fort Stanwix.” National Park Service. Last modified February 23, 2023.