The Journal
of
Negro History
Vol. VI—April, 1921—No. 2
MAKING WEST VIRGINIA A FREE STATE
The Historic Background
In 1763 the Peace of Paris definitely fixed the boundaries of Virginia, giving as its western line, the Mississippi River from the Ohio River to the Lake of Woods.[1] As time and settlement progressed, the other colonies, growing fearful of Virginia's commanding position, protested against her retention of this vast territory. Finally, in 1784, Virginia ceded to the Congress of the Confederation all lands lying north and west of the Ohio River. She wanted it stipulated, however, that the territory between the Ohio River and the Allegheny Mountains comprising what is now West Virginia should remain forever hers. Although the Congress did not make this stipulation, for the reason that Virginia was unable to show title; Virginia was, nevertheless, permitted to retain possession of the said territory.[2]
"The surface of Virginia of that day is divided into two unequally inclined planes and a centrally located valley. The eastern plane is subdivided into the Piedmont and the Tidewater; the western into the Allegheny Highlands, the Cumberland Plateau, and the Ohio Valley section; the area between was designated the Valley." The eastern part of the State abounds in rich fertile soil, well adapted to agriculture, while the western portion, especially the trans-Allegheny region possesses in large quantities such natural resources as bituminous coal, building stone, natural gas and petroleum.[3] The "Valley," a part of the great Appalachian range of valleys, is a depressed surface, several hundred feet below the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the one side, and the Alleghenies on the other. It is the dividing line of the two sections of the State then known as eastern and western Virginia.
The earlier settlements west of the mountains were made by the more adventurous persons of the east, who had no property or other ties to attach them to the soil whence they came. At a later date, a more substantial class, Germans and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, made settlements in this western country. They brought few slaves with them but engaged in agriculture. A new type of people from the free States to the north and west, next, came to Western Virginia.[4]
Slavery did not become a flourishing institution there, and in the decades between the years of 1840 and 1860, the demand for slave labor in the Gulf States caused the bulk of the slave population to go to that market. The commercial and industrial interests developed there found their outlets west and north. There was little intercourse of any kind and practically no commerce with Eastern Virginia. No railroad connected the west with the east. Burning political differences manifested themselves, and these, with the lack of commercial and social intercourse already noted, accentuated strife between the two sections,[5] as was manifested in every State constitutional convention held prior to the Civil War.