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Scarce early school atlas map of the United States, published in Boston.
The map includes several unusual state and territorial configurations.
Indiana is shown pushed well west of its actual position, with Michigan Territory shown on both sides of Lake Michigan.
Mississippi Territory is shown extending to the Mississippi River, prior to the formation of Alabama Territory on August 15, 1817.
Most notably, the map shows Illinois Territory in the configuration which it existed from 1809 to December 3, 1818, one of teh few maps we have seen to show this configuration.
The Illinois Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States, established on March 1, 1809, and existing until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion was admitted into the Union as the State of Illinois. Its capital was the former French village of Kaskaskia, located along the Mississippi River, which remains part of modern Illinois. Following Illinois's statehood, the northern portion of the territory, which encompassed present-day Wisconsin, along with parts of Minnesota and Michigan, was transferred to the Michigan Territory in 1818.
Previously referred to as "Illinois Country" (Pays des Illinois), this area was under French control, initially as part of French Canada and later as a southern region of French Louisiana. The British acquired control over the land east of the Mississippi River in 1763, following the Treaty of Paris, which concluded the French and Indian War and marked the end of French dominance in North America under the colony of New France.
During the American Revolutionary War, Colonel George Rogers Clark secured the region for Virginia, which subsequently established the "County of Illinois" to maintain nominal governance. In 1784, Virginia ceded most of its land claims north of the Ohio River to the federal government, leading to its incorporation into the United States.
Initially part of the United States' Northwest Territory (1787–1800) and later the Indiana Territory, Illinois Territory was formally created by Congress on February 3, 1809. This decision came after petitions from residents along the Mississippi River, who expressed difficulties in managing territorial affairs from distant Indiana.
The Illinois Territory originally encompassed land that now constitutes Illinois, Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota, and the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The boundaries were defined as follows: "...all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the Wabash river, and a direct line drawn from the said Wabash river and Post Vincennes, due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada..."
