Geography of Ohio 411 



it belonged to the French. If, on the other hand, the planting of 

 colonies and bringing the area under agriculture, is necessary for 

 ownership, only a small part of it can be said to have belonged 

 rightfully to the French, because they looked upon this great 

 area more as a field for trade with the Indians than as a section 

 which they might colonize, and from which they might win agri- 

 cultural returns. In only one part, away from the immediate 

 environment of the St. Lawrence, did the French have agricul- 

 tural colonies; in sections of Indiana and Illinois, the central 

 points of which were Kaskaskia and Vincennes, they did colonize, 

 and some agricultural returns from these communities reached 

 Europe. 



CLAIM OF GREAT BRITAIN 



Royal charters. From the premature efforts of Walter Raleigh 

 to the time of the regular plans of James Oglethorpe, the decades 

 abound in charters issued by the British kings to loyal subjects, 

 granting boundless lands in the New Continent, of the limits of 

 which they were entirely ignorant. These charters were usually 

 inexpensive; and many favors to royalt}" were rewarded by issuing 

 charters to cover unknown territory in America. Slight effort 

 was made to collate the boundaries of these land grants; fre- 

 quently different individuals and companies had charter titles 

 to the same territory. These charters are not very interesting 

 reading today ; they are buried in the customary verbiage of Anglo- 

 Saxon law style. The grants were not accurately defined ; some- 

 times the northern and southern limits were fixed by degrees and 

 minutes of latitude; the westward limits, if referred to at all, 

 were supposed to be the ''South Sea," or the Pacific Ocean, but 

 nobody knew its location in reference to the grants. 



Discovery by John Cabot. But the English based theii" owner- 

 ship of America as a whole on the right of discovery by John 

 Cabot, a Mediterranean citizen whom the English had hired to 

 explore for them. John Cabot had scarcely done more than to 

 sight the mainland, but this was ample in a land so large that 

 generations passed before interests became too conflicting. At 

 length, with the expansion of settlements and the activity of 

 traders, collisions between the English and French arose. Then 

 England established other claims to territory not already in 



