Vandalia was the name in the late 18th century of a proposedBritish colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of theOhio River, primarily in what are nowWest Virginia and northeasternKentucky.
Vandalia was never approved by the British Crown and had no colonial government, although some Virginians and Pennsylvanians had already settled there. After theAmerican Revolutionary War, the Vandalia settlers sought unsuccessfully to be admitted as a state calledWestsylvania. However, they had no legal title to the land and were opposed by the governments of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which both claimed the area as their own under colonial charters. Ultimately, the federal government split the area between Pennsylvania and Virginia according to theMason–Dixon line.[1] Kentucky was later settled by Virginians and admitted as a state; West Virginia was admitted as a state in 1863, during theAmerican Civil War.
In the 18th century,British land speculators several times attempted to colonize theOhio Valley, most notably in 1748 when theBritish Crown granted a petition of theOhio Company for 200,000 acres (800 km2) near the "Forks of the Ohio" (present-dayPittsburgh, Pennsylvania).[2] TheFrench and Indian War (1754–63) andPontiac's Rebellion (1763–66) delayed settlement of the region.[3]
After Pontiac's Rebellion, merchants who had lost their trade items during the conflict formed a group known as the "suffering traders", later to become the Indiana Company. In theTreaty of Fort Stanwix (1768), the British required theIroquois to give the "suffering traders" a grant of land. Those who benefited the most wereSamuel Wharton andWilliam Trent. Known as the"Indiana Grant", this land was located along the Ohio River and included part of the Iroquois' hunting ground, which they had controlled since the 17th century.[4] When Wharton and Trent sailed to England in 1769 seeking to have their grant confirmed, they joined forces with the Ohio Company to form theGrand Ohio Company, also called the Walpole Company.
The Grand Ohio Company eventually received a larger area of land than the Indiana Grant.[5] The development companies planned a new colony, initially called "Pittsylvania" (Wright 1988:212) but later known as Vandalia, in honor of the British queenCharlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), who was thought to be descended fromVandalic tribesmen.[6][7][8]
Opposition from rival interest groups[9] and the outbreak of theAmerican Revolutionary War (1775–83) prevented the development of Vandalia as a full colony.[10] During the Revolutionary War, some settlers in the region petitioned the AmericanContinental Congress to recognize a new province to be known asWestsylvania, which had approximately the same borders as the earlier Vandalia proposal. As both the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed the region, they blocked recognition of a new state.[11] The Indiana Company presented a bill in equity against the State of Virginia concerning their claims, but the ruling inChisholm v. Georgia led to the Eleventh Amendment forbidding suits by citizens of another State, and the Supreme Court dismissed the Indiana Company's suit, holding the constitutional amendment applied retroactively.
Theformation of the state of Kentucky in 1792 and theseparation of West Virginia from Virginia in 1863, established the present political borders in the region.