28-644: The Territory of Nevada (N.T.) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until October 31, 1864, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Nevada . Prior to the creation of the Nevada Territory, the area was part of western Utah Territory and was known as Washoe , after the native Washoe people. The separation of the territory from Utah
56-489: A more complete list of regions and subdivisions of the United States used in modern times, see List of regions of the United States . † - indicates failed legal entities Unlike the land to the east, most of the land west of the Mississippi River was under French or Spanish rule until the first years of the 19th century. The following are state cessions made during the building of the U.S. The following
84-532: A result of the attempted secession of the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Some were enclaves within enemy-held territories: These were regions disassociated from neighboring areas due to opposing views: Belts are loosely defined sub-regions found throughout the United States that are named for a perceived commonality among the included areas, which is often related to
112-443: Is a list of the 31 U.S. territories that have become states, in the order of the date organized . (All were considered incorporated .) The following are land grants, cessions, defined districts (official or otherwise) or named settlements made within an area that was already part of a U.S. state or territory that did not involve international treaties or Native American cessions or land purchases. These entities were sometimes
140-593: The 19th century, there was one more case of a state ceding some of its land to the federal government. Before the Republic of Texas joined the United States in 1845, it claimed a good deal of land that had never been under the de facto control of the Texan government – Texan attempts to exercise control of these territories as a sovereign state (most famously, the Santa Fe expedition ) had ended in disaster. Thus, there
168-497: The Mississippi; the jobs of determining how that land should be governed, and how the conflicting claims to it by several of the states should be resolved, were one of the first major tasks facing the new nation. The potential for trouble arising from these claims was twofold. One problem was obvious: in many cases more than one state laid claim to the same piece of territory, but clearly only one would be ultimately recognized as
196-496: The Nevada territorial delegation to Congress requested the boundary be moved east to the 38th meridian , which Congress granted in 1862. The border was shifted further east, to the 37th meridian , in 1866, in part due to the discovery of more gold deposits. These eastward shifts took land away from Utah Territory . The southern border of Nevada Territory had been defined as the 37th parallel , but in 1866 Nevada asked Congress to move
224-674: The United States The territory of the United States and its overseas possessions has evolved over time , from the colonial era to the present day. It includes formally organized territories, proposed and failed states, unrecognized breakaway states , international and interstate purchases, cessions , and land grants , and historical military departments and administrative districts. The last section lists informal regions from American vernacular geography known by popular nicknames and linked by geographical, cultural, or economic similarities, some of which are still in use today. For
252-599: The area until its admission into the Union as a separate state in 1792. Massachusetts ' claims to land in modern-day Michigan and Wisconsin, by contrast, amounted to little more than lines drawn on a map. The Treaty of Paris (1763) that ended the war known as the French and Indian War in North America had France cede most of its claims to land on the continent to Great Britain and Spain . Great Britain, gaining
280-621: The areas later ceded by Texas to the federal government , which make up parts of five more states. Most of the British American colonies were established in the 17th and early 18th century when geographical knowledge of North America was incomplete. Many of these colonies were established by royal proclamation or charter that defined their boundaries as stretching " from sea to sea "; others did not have western boundaries established at all. These colonies thus ended up with theoretical extents that overlapped each other and conflicted with
308-643: The border south to the Colorado River. Congress granted the request in 1867, giving Nevada all of the western end of Arizona Territory . Arizona strongly protested, but found little sympathy in Congress due in part to Arizona having aligned with the Confederacy during the Civil War . The exact location of the due north-south California– Nevada border, between Lake Tahoe and the intersection with
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#1732771716603336-400: The cessions were made in exchange for federal assumption of the states' Revolutionary War debts—but the states' reasonably graceful cessions of their oft-conflicting claims prevented early, perhaps catastrophic, rifts among the states of the young Republic, and assuaged the fears of the "landless" states enough to convince them to ratify the new United States Constitution . The cessions also set
364-452: The claims and settlements established by other European powers. The British government's Royal Proclamation of 1763 , while not resolving the disputes over the colonies' trans-Appalachian claims, succeeded in slowing down the movement of people into the region and the making of new claims in it. Many, however, ignored the proclamation, and various frontier settlement enterprises, owing allegiance to disparate colonial governments, continued. By
392-590: The disputed Texan lands and also ceded/sold the land extending west to the Pacific Ocean. The Mexican government was paid $ 25,000,000 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. In addition, the maximalist land claims of the Republic of Texas did not set the northern and western borders of the State of Texas . Most, but not all, of its northern boundary had been set by a treaty between the United States and
420-599: The eastern half of France's southern lands, extended the claims of its colonies of Massachusetts , Connecticut , Virginia, North Carolina , South Carolina , and Georgia to the Mississippi River ; in some cases, this reinforced earlier charter claims. The Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the American Revolution established American sovereignty over the land between the Appalachians and
448-595: The headwaters of the Savannah River actually extended into North Carolina. This meant that this strip of land for South Carolina had actually been illusory. Pennsylvania claimed the portion of land along Lake Erie commonly known as the Erie Triangle ; after Massachusetts and Connecticut ceded their claims to it, the Erie Triangle was sold to Pennsylvania by the federal government in 1792. Later in
476-521: The land was also disputed between the United States and Spain. When Georgia finally sold the land west of its current boundaries to the United States for cash in 1802, the last phase of western cessions was complete. Note that the claim by South Carolina had been for land between the headwaters of the Savannah River and the southern boundary of North Carolina , and thence westward. In fact, however, later and more accurate surveying showed that
504-590: The only governmental authority in the listed areas, although they often co-existed with civil governments in scarcely populated states and territories. Civilian administered "military" tracts, districts, departments, etc., will be listed elsewhere. During the American Civil War, the Department of the Pacific had six subordinate military districts: The Department of California (1858–1861) comprised
532-694: The region's economy or climate. State cessions The state cessions are the areas of the United States that the separate states ceded to the federal government in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The cession of these lands, which for the most part lay between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River , was key to establishing a harmonious union among the former British colonies. The areas ceded comprise 236,825,600 acres (370,040.0 sq mi; 958,399 km ), or 10.4 percent of current United States territory , and make up all or part of 10 states. This does not include
560-487: The smaller states feared that it would come to completely dominate the union. In the end, most of the trans-Appalachian land claims were ceded to the Federal government between 1781 and 1787; New York, New Hampshire, and the hitherto unrecognized Vermont government resolved their squabbles by 1791, and Kentucky was separated from Virginia and made into a new state in 1792. The cessions were not entirely selfless—in some cases
588-481: The southern boundary of Oregon at the 42nd parallel , was contentious and was surveyed and re-surveyed well into the 20th century. Congress transferred some of the lands west of the Colorado River including Pah-Ute County, Arizona Territory to the State of Nevada on May 5, 1866. Part of this southern tip of Nevada was established as Clark County in 1909 and contains the city of Las Vegas . The territorial capital
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#1732771716603616-666: The southern part of the Department of the Pacific: California, Nevada, and southern part of Oregon Territory; merged into the Department of the Pacific as the District of California. The Department of Oregon (1858–1861) comprised the northern part of the Department of the Pacific: Washington Territory and Oregon Territory. These "territories" had actual, functioning governments (recognized or not): These are functioning governments created as
644-444: The sovereign. The other conflict also threatened the peace of the new union. Only seven of the thirteen states had western land claims, and the other, "landless" states were fearful of being overwhelmed by states that controlled vast stretches of the new frontier. Virginia in particular, which already encompassed 1 in 5 inhabitants of the new nation, laid claim to modern-day Kentucky, and the vast territory it called Illinois County , and
672-546: The stage for the settlement of the Upper Midwest and the expansion of the U.S. into the center of the North American continent, and also established the pattern by which land newly acquired by the United States would be organized into new states rather than attached to old ones. Georgia held on to its claims over trans-Appalachian land for another decade, and this claim was complicated by the fact that much of
700-626: The time of the American Revolution , the boundaries between the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States had been for the most part surveyed and agreed upon. Their land claims also corresponded in varying degrees to the actual reality on the ground in the west at the eve of the Revolution. Kentucky , for instance, was organized into a county of Virginia in 1776, with Virginia serving as practical sovereign over
728-698: Was a border dispute between Texas, Mexico, and Native American tribes that the U.S. government inherited upon the annexation of Texas. This was one of the causes of the Mexican–American War of 1846–47 (another being the western land aspirations of the U.S. coupled with the refusal by the United Mexican States to sell its territory to the U.S.). After the American victory in that war, the Mexican government recognized American sovereignty over
756-470: Was important to the federal government because of its political leanings, while the population itself was keen to be separated because of animosity (and sometimes violence) between non-Mormons in Nevada and Mormons from the rest of the Utah Territory . The eastern boundary of Nevada Territory had been defined as the 39th meridian west from Washington , but when gold discoveries were made to the east
784-471: Was moved from the provisional capital of Genoa to Carson City . James Warren Nye succeeded Isaac Roop , the first provisional territorial governor, and became the only territorial governor. The secretary of the territory was Orion Clemens (older brother of Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain ), who more or less served as governor in Nye's constant absence. Organized incorporated territory of
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