Vandalia was the name of a proposed British colony in North America that never materialized. The colony was to be located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what is now the U.S. states of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. British land speculators had attempted to colonize the Ohio Valley earlier, most notably in 1748 when the British Crown granted a petition of the Ohio Company for 200,000 acres (800 km²) near the "forks of the Ohio" (present Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–1766) delayed colonization in the region. After Pontiac's Rebellion, merchants who lost a lot of their goods in the war formed a group known as the "suffering traders", later known as the Indiana Company. In the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the "suffering traders"—most notably Samuel Wharton and William Trent—received a grant of land (the "Indiana Grant") along the Ohio River from the Iroquois as restitution for their losses. When Wharton and Trent went to England in 1769 to have their grant confirmed, they combined forces with the Ohio Company to form a new consortium known as the Grand Ohio Company or the Walpole Company. The Grand Ohio Company eventually received an even larger grant than the Indiana Grant. A new colony was planned, initially called "Pittsylvania" but later known as Vandalia, in honor of Queen Charlotte, who was thought to be descended from the Vandals. Opposition from rival interest groups and the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) prevented Vandalia from coming into existence. During the war, some settlers in the region petitioned the American Continental Congress to recognize a new province to be known as Westsylvania, which had approximately the same borders as the earlier Vandalia proposal. Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed the region, however, and blocked recognition of a new state.
References
- Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. Western Lands and the American Revolution. Originally published 1937. New York: Russell & Russell, 1959.
- Alvord, Clarence W. The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, vol. 1. Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur Clark, 1917.
