The settlement of Michigan and the Northwest Territories, and the many conflicting claims on this land, are reviewed in the series of maps that follow.
    Americans were slow to move into Michigan, even after the lands had come under American control. The British continued the fur trade on US lands, encouraged Native nations to resist US expansion, and repossessed some western forts. These acts contributed to the War of 1812, and the formation of a resistance movement by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. Only with the end of the war (in 1815) did the US secure its claim to the area. 
    For more than seven decades after the American Revolution, what is now Michigan was part of various US territories. Citizens living in territories did not have all the rights that citizens living in states did. Territories did serve an important function, however, in setting the stage for eventual statehood.

Isle Royale.
The Treaty of 1783 specifically gave Isle Royale to the United States. It stated that the water boundary should run "northward of the isles Royal and Phelipeaux." The latter island first appeared on a map prepared by the cartographer Bellin in 1744. The island does not exist, but it continued to appear on maps of Lake Superior for many years, including the map used in the Paris peace talks, in 1783. Many writers and others, including park rangers at Isle Royale National Park, have perpetuated the story that Benjamin Franklin, knowing of the existence of copper deposits on Isle Royale, managed to include the island within the United States because of that knowledge. This story, for the most part, has now been disproved. Mitchell’s map shows both Isle Royale and the mythical island of Phelipeaux centrally located in Lake Superior, which was, in the case of Isle Royale, considerably to the south of where that island is actually located. According to historians, the natural water "dividing line" that the negotiators were attempting to describe in the Treaty of 1783 would run north of Isle Royale, which is no doubt the reason the island was placed on the American side of the line (see the map below), where it would ultimately fall within the boundaries of the state of Michigan.

Source: Atlas of Wisconsin

Prior to and during the War of 1812, parts of Michigan again became British territory.  After losing this war, the British again spent some time with the US Government crafting the Canada-US (or more precisely, Quebec-Michigan) boundary.  The exact location of the international boundary, which had been determined by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, had not been determined at that time, although two proposals were most favored:  One proposal, shown below, would have continued the 45th parallel west, from Vermont.  Of course, this proposal had the distinct disadvantage of allowing neither the US nor Canada a water passage through the Great lakes without crossing each other's border several times.  The other proposal (the one that was accepted) is the one we use today, which essentially "splits" four of the five the Great Lakes with Canada.  Only Lake Michigan lies wholly within the US.

Source: Unknown

    Mackinac Island, which had been held by the Brits during the war, was turned over to the US and became part of Michigan.  The British, again engaged in boundary issues with the "yankees", assumed that Drummond Island (south of the Soo, NE of Mackinac Island, near the entrance to the St. Mary's River) lay on their side of the line.  Having decided not to divide up any disputed islands, an international boundary commission eventually gave Drummond Island to the US, since it laid to the west of the channel normally used to navigate between Lakes Huron and Superior.  In exchange, Canada was given Bois Blanc Island, at the mouth of the Detroit River.  Sugar Island, to the NE of Drummond, stayed in dispute until a treaty in 1842 gave it to the Canadians.
    After the Great Lakes region had been ceded to the United States by Great Britain, it was immediately "claimed" by several eastern states.  The map below shows the extent of this "land grab".

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977. 

In 1787, Congress put an end to these conflicting claims, essentially saying that no existing state could lay claim to the Great Lakes region.  Instead, it issued the Northwest Ordinance, establishing the Northwest Territory (see map below). 

Source: Unknown


This Ordinance established the "Old Northwest" from land that had been ceded to the fledgling United States from Britain, after the Revolutionary War.  Nonetheless, parts of the Northwest Territory (see map below, the green area) were still claimed by some eastern states.  The map below also outlines Thomas Jefferson's proposal for subdividing the NW Territory into states.  Can you image the city of East Lansing, Metropotamia???!!  Fortunately, Jefferson was overruled, and the US government eventually decided to divide the NW Territory into no more than five states.

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977. 

    Problems of conflicting land claims (under the old "metes and bounds" system) were so serious in the seaboard colonies, and were becoming so threatening west of the Appalachians, that the founding fathers determined they must be solved before settlement could be allowed "on the western waters."  Their largest block of unclaimed land was the Northwest Territory, the area north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi, and south of the Great Lakes. This "Old Northwest" became the nucleus of the original public domain of the United States when the Commonwealth of Virginia ceded it to Congress in 1784.
    Congress therefore appointed a committee, under the chairmanship of Thomas Jefferson, to prepare an overall plan for the systematic survey and subdivision of the public domain before it was alienated to intending settlers. The public domain consists of all land directly owned by the government, alienation is the process by which the government transfers the ownership of public land to private citizens. It is always understood that the government reserves the right of eminent domain, the right to take back private property if it is needed for public use.
    Jefferson’s proposal, as modified and adopted by congress in the Land Ordinance of 1785, is known as the Congressional Public Land Surveys system, the US Public Land Survey (USPLS) System, or the Township and Range Survey System; these names are used interchangeably. The fundamental features of the system are: (1) the land had to be surveyed before it could be alienated and settled, (2) the survey lines were oriented in cardinal compass directions (N, S, E, or W) and, (3) the land was divided into townships six miles square, which were subdivided into sections of one square mile each, or 640 acres.
    The young American nation used the state of Ohio as a laboratory for experimenting with different kinds of rectangular survey systems. In 1785 Chief Geographer Thomas Hutchins ran the first survey line from Pennsylvania 42 miles west into Ohio before his party encountered a group of unfriendly Indians who offered them free haircuts. They decided to beat a hasty retreat to Pittsburgh.
    Unfriendly Indians were merely one of the routine hazards of survey parties. They had to hack their way through thick forests to run their lines across rugged country, and were regularly subject to attack by wild animals, snakes, mosquitoes, and malaria (ague), on top of all the usual vicissitudes of wind and weather to which anyone is exposed who works outdoors. And they had little time for pinpoint accuracy or niceties of detail, because settlers clamoring for land were hot on their heels.
    The American era did not begin auspiciously. Although the Land Ordinance of 1787 provided for the government of the old Northwest Territory, of which Michigan was a part, that government seemed remote and indifferent. British influence kept the Indians uneasy and sullen, and there were few American settlers in the region. By the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the Indians ceded a tract six miles wide extending from Lake St. Clair to the River Raisin, as well as Mackinac Island, Bois Blanc Island, and other important lands.  This was the first of the cessions of land by the Indians, to the US government.  In so doing, these land cessions opened the way for pioneers to finally, safely, settle the land.

In 1796 Wayne County was organized as part of the old Northwest Territory and included most of present-day Michigan, with large parts of present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. In 1800 the Territory was divided by a line running from the Ohio River up through the center of the Lower Peninsula (see map below), all west of that line being included in the new Territory of Indiana, all east of it in the reduced Northwest Territory. But in 1803, when Ohio was admitted as a State, all of the present State of Michigan was included in the Territory of Indiana.
    The people of Michigan were dismayed to discover that their capital was to be at Vincennes, hundreds of miles distant across the wilderness. Within a few years the people’s patience was beginning to run out. They were terribly irritated when the first election was held in Indiana Territory in 1804 and the proclamation did not arrive in Detroit until after the event!
    Congress at length yielded, and on January 11, 1805, President Jefferson approved an act creating "Michigan Territory". It included all the southern peninsula and the northern one eastward from Mackinac. The southern line ran eastward from the tip of Lake Michigan and included the Toledo Strip in Ohio.
    By 1818, when the Indians were expelled, the bugs had been worked out of the system in other parts of the state, and the rectangular survey system that was used in northwestern Ohio (Ohio Territory, see the map below) became the standard that was subsequently extended to most of the United States west of the Appalachians. In many places the straight north-south and east-west lines of the survey are now state, county, and minor civil boundaries as well. The lines of the survey system determine the boundaries of most properties, and all but the most important highways follow property boundaries instead of cutting across them. The rural Midwest is crisscrossed by straight "section-line" roads spaced at one-mile intervals that intersect at right angles, and the survey is why many American farmers reckon their land in terms of sections of 640 acres, quarters of 160 acres, and "forties," or quarters of quarters.  
Eventually, in 1803, Ohio became a state (see map below) and Michigan was a part of "Indiana Territory."

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977. 


Michigan protested being a part of Indiana Territory, because its territorial capital was Vincennes, Indiana (the "x" on the map).  That was simply too far from where most Michiganians lived.  So, shortly thereafter, in 1805, Michigan Territory was carved out of Indiana Territory, as the map below shows.

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977. 

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977. 

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