Treaties Open Kentucky and West Virginia to Settlement

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix and Treaty of Hard Labour in 1768, followed by the Treaty of Lochaber in 1770, opened much of present-day Kentucky and West Virginia to British settlement within the Virginia Colony.

When this happened

Treaties Open Kentucky and West Virginia to Settlement occurred in 1768 and 1770, during the colonial period period of American history. The event spanned from 1768 to 1770.

Where this happened

Treaties Open Kentucky and West Virginia to Settlement took place in Virginia. Explore the full history of Virginia and primary source records from this era.

European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.

Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia: Early to mid-1700s: Westward expansion.