Excerpt from "Virginia's Cession of Western Lands to the
United States"

Issued on December 20, 1783
Published in Documents of American History, edited by
Henry S. Commager, 1943

The meaning of "the West" changed constantly through America's early history as the population increased and moved farther from the Atlantic coast. In the 1600s, any land more than 100 miles from the Atlantic coast was "the West." By the 1780s, the West referred to land located between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River; in the South, the West meant land west of the Carolinas and Georgia, extending to the Mississippi. Under the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the treaty that ended the American Revolution, Britain withdrew its claim to these lands. Ownership and control of these western lands was one of the most confusing and controversial issues facing the new nation.

Most of the original colonies were...