British Claims to the Ohio Valley: Cabot & the Virginia Company

British claims to the Ohio Valley rested on two pillars of early English exploration and settlement:

1. John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) – 1497

• Voyage: Bristol → Newfoundland/Nova Scotia coast (Matthew, 50 tons, 18 crew)
• Claim: Landed June 24, 1497; planted English flag; claimed "new found land" for Henry VII
• Legal Basis: Discovery Doctrine – first Christian sovereign to sight/land claims sovereignty
• Scope: Ambiguous – "mainland" could imply entire continent north of Spanish claims

2. Virginia Company of London – 1606/1607

• Charter (1606): James I grants rights 34°–41° N (Cape Fear to Long Island) "from sea to sea, west and northwest"
• Jamestown (1607): First permanent English settlement – foothold on the continent
• Second Charter (1609): "Sea to sea" expanded – explicitly 200 miles north/south of Point Comfort, "west and northwest" to Pacific
• Third Charter (1612): Added Bermuda; confirmed continental scope

How This Became "Ohio Valley" Claim

• Westward Extension: Virginia's charter "sea to sea" → theoretical claim to Pacific, encompassing Ohio Valley
• Exploration: 1669–1670 (John Lederer), 1671 (Batts & Fallam) – reached Ohio River tributaries
• Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768): Iroquois cede Ohio Valley claims to Britain – Britain cites Virginia charter lineage
• Royal Proclamation (1763): Reserved trans-Appalachia for Natives – but Virginia/colonists ignored

Competing Claims

• France: La Salle (1682) descended Mississippi → claimed "Louisiana" (entire basin incl. Ohio)
• Pennsylvania: 1681 charter (40°–43° N) overlapped Ohio headwaters
• Connecticut: 1662 charter "sea to sea" → Wyoming Valley dispute

Resolution

• Treaty of Paris (1783): Britain cedes Ohio Valley to US (not individual states)
• Northwest Ordinance (1787): Creates Northwest Territory – federal, not Virginia
• Virginia Cession (1784): Virginia yields western claims to Congress

The British claim was legal fiction extended by charter language—Cabot's landfall + Virginia's "sea to sea" = paper title to a continent they barely knew.