Indiana Company

Indiana Company originated with a group of Indian traders and their merchant backers who lost goods during Pontiac's War (1763). The Iroquois, to compensate for these losses, presented the traders with a large tract of land (now part of West Virginia) in a treaty agreement. Company executives attempted to secure royal confirmation of the title, but the claim was swallowed up in the project for the Grand Ohio Company. When the Revolution broke out, the Indiana Company reorganized and proceeded to sell land, but Virginia blocked its operations and contested its land claims. The company eventually brought suit against Virginia in the U.S. Supreme Court (Grayson v. Virginia), but the case was ultimately dismissed on the ground that the Court had no jurisdiction under the Eleventh Amendment.

Bibliography

Bayard, Charles Judah. The Development of Public Land Policy, 1783–1820. New York: Arno Press, 1979.

Cayton, Andrew R. L. Frontier Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.