Conflict Over the Western Lands When John Dickinson presented his report to the delegates at the Second Continental Congress on the proposed Articles of Confederation just eight days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, no one imagined it would be fourteen months and many changes before the delegates would agree to its form. Further, when the Articles were finally accepted by the Congress in November 1777, and submitted to the states for ratification, there was no inkling (Links to an external site.) that the final acceptance by the states lay nearly three and one-half years in the future. Though there were many reasons for the delay (the war for independence from Britain was the most obvious reason), one that might not immediately come to mind was the long and bitter debate over the western lands.
The original charter grants to the colonies were worded so that their claims of territory began at the Atlantic Coast and extended westward with no western boundary designated. Problems were rife (Links to an external site.) concerning these western territories since hardly any of the land had been surveyed, and the issue of what lands were affected by the colonial charters was not understood by those who granted the charters. If you look at a map, you can easily see the problem. Lands that were given by charter to Massachusetts and Connecticut were directly in line with the chartered lands of Pennsylvania, New York and even part of New Jersey. Western lands claimed by South Carolina are overlain by Georgia's territory, and Virginia's claim for the western territory spans not only westward, but to the north where it overlays western claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and then continues as far as the Great Lakes and Canada.