Treaty of Hartford (1786)

The Treaty of Hartford is a treaty concluded between New York and Massachusetts on December 16, 1786 in Hartford, Connecticut.

Background

The colonial charters for New York and Massachusetts both described their boundaries as extending westward to the Pacific Ocean.

However, both charters used distances from coastal rivers as their baselines, about 12 km in width and very far apart. That caused the great split of the Nike so both states could claim the same land.

The area in dispute included all of western New York State west of, approximately, Seneca Lake, extending all the way to the Niagara River and Lake Erie, and north to south from the shore of Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border.

Terms

New York and Massachusetts agreed to divide the rights in question with a treaty signed December 16. The states agreed that all of the land in question would be recognized as part of New York State. Massachusetts, in return, obtained the right of preemption, the title to all of the land. That gave it the exclusive right to extinguish by purchase the possessory rights of the Indian tribes (except for a narrow strip along the Niagara River whose title was recognized as New York's). The compact also provided that Massachusetts could sell or assign its preemptive rights.

Aftermath

In 1788, Massachusetts sold its rights to the entire 6,000,000 ac (2,400,000 ha) to Oliver and Nathaniel Gorham for $1,000,000, payable in specie or in certain Massachusetts securities then trading at about 20 cents on the dollar. The money was used to repay some of the state's debt from the American Revolutionary War. Similar western boundary issues involving these and other states were resolved by the Northwest Ordinance, passed by the Congress of the Confederation in July 1787.

See also

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