The british based their claims to the ohio valley on the exploration of what exploring team?

Answer 1

The easy answer, and probably the answer most commonly given, is the 1497 voyage of John Cabot. That answer, however, is almost certainly incorrect.

The British claim to Ohio was based on, if anything, the charters issued to companies that founded the Virginia and New England colonies, rather than on any particular "expedition." Usually, when the British crown "claimed", or authorized the occupation and settlement of any part of North America, it was based on nothing more than the relative absence of any other European presence in the area, and thus its availability for settlement. That is largely exactly what occurred in the Ohio country. The Colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were an exception; they were not originally settled by Britain at all, but were instead captured from the Dutch during the second Dutch war. But there was never a dispute between the British and Dutch over who had the superior "claim" to those colonies; their capture was a by-product only, of a war over trade, not territorial claims.

The first British claim to North American territory was indeed "probably" made by John Cabot. 1n 1497. He sailed for a short distance along the coast in the area between Maine and Labrador (the exact area is unknown), reportedly going ashore, at one point, only for a few hours - only long enough to formally claim the land for the English King. He then sailed home. His voyage was very poorly documented - no first-hand records exist, not even from Cabot himself - and no one is sure where Cabot really went; what part of the coast he explored, and where he landed. All that is known or believed about his voyage has been gathered from letters written by others after the fact, mentioning the voyage and its events

250 years later, however, when England and France were actively contending for control of the Ohio Country, no mention was made anywhere, at all, of John Cabot. And 400 years later, today, the effective basis for British claims to any part of North America are difficult to pinpoint precisely, beyond, as stated above, the relative absence of any other previous European settlement in the area.

In 1534, 37 years after Cabot's voyage, France's King Francis I commissioned Jacques Cartier to explore the new world for France. Cartier made the first of 3 voyages that year, exploring and mapping the Gulf of St Lawrence, and declaring French possession of the territory in the name of the King. Cartier returned to France thinking he had landed somewhere in Asia.

Cartier returned to America in 1535, this time sailing up the St. Lawrence River as far as modern-day Montreal. They spent the winter in a fort they constructed along the river, then returned to France in 1536. Cartier gave Canada its name on this voyage, after the Huron-Iroquois word "Kanata", for "settlement" or "land."

Cartier made his third voyage in 1541, establishing a colony at present-day Cap-Rouge, Quebec. He returned to France in 1542; the colony he established was abandoned in 1543.

France made several attempts to establish colonies in "New France" over several decades following Cartier's voyages. The first to actually succeed was a small trading settlement established at Tadoussac in 1600, followed by a colony at Port Royal, in Acadia, in 1605.

In 1584, Queen Elizabeth of England granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, to "... discover, search, finde out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian Prince, nor inhabited by Christian People..." There was no mention in this charter of Cabot's voyage, nor his alleged claim, or any other previous claim to the land he would colonize. The only basis offered for colonizing the land was just that it not be "possessed of any Christian Prince, nor inhabited by Christian People." This, just 87 years after Cabot's voyage.

Raleigh went on to attempt to establish a colony, in a territory he would name Virginia. The colony failed, but the name "Virginia" would endure.

In 1606, the British "London Virginia Company" (a joint venture of the London Company and the Plymouth Company) was granted a charter by King James I of England to establish colonies "... into that part of America commonly called Virginia, and other parts and Territories in America, either appertaining unto us, or which are not now actually possessed by any Christian Prince or People..." Again, no mention was made of Cabot, merely that the land be "...not now actually possessed by any Christian Prince or People."

In 1607, the London Company sent an expedition to establish their colony in North America; they named the Colony Jamestown, and it was the first permanent British settlement in North America. Two years later, the Plymouth Company disolved, and the Charter was revised, King James amending the Virginia Colony's charter to include "...all those lands, countries and territories scituat, lieinge and beinge in that place of America called Virginia... from the sea coaste of the precinct aforesaid upp unto the lande, throughoute, from sea to sea, west and northwest..." This was the first written document where the British crown actually granted license to a British subject to settle land in the Ohio country. This document, again, made no reference to any previous British claim, to the voyages of Cabot, or to any claim made by Cabot.

There were other, later, amendments to the Virginia Company's charter, as well as to the charter of the Plymouth Council for New England (the successor to the Plymouth Company). None of these amendments made any reference to any claim by John Cabot.

On September 20, 1620, in another charter, the king granted Acadia and the surrounding area to William Alexander, a Scot who was a poet and tutor to Prince Henry, the eldest of the king's sons. No mention is made of Cabot in this charter; only that settlement of such land will be a "glory to God".

In the November 3, 1620 Charter of New England, the justification was "... in Hope thereby to advance the in Largement of Christian Religion, to the Glory of God Almighty, as also by that Meanes to streatch out the Bounds of our Dominions, and to replenish those Deserts with People governed by Lawes and Magistrates, for the peaceable Commerce of all..." No mention of Cabot.

And so it continued - numerous charters and commissions, not one referring to any voyage or claim made by John Cabot.

In 1669, French explorer René Robert LaSalle reached the Ohio River and followed it as far as present-day Louisville, KY, claiming the land for France. His expedition was followed by another from France, that of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, who explored the upper Mississippi basin in 1673.

Despite British claims to the area in the Jamestown charter, there had been no comparable British exploration of this area, at all, up to this time.

By the Early 1700's, although the French had not moved to settle the Ohio country, they had established settlements along the St. Lawrence, around the Great Lakes, and along the upper Mississippi. In Ohio, they preferred to maintain close relations with the Native inhabitants, preferring to leave the land to them and instead establish a lucrative fur trade with them.

Viewing this empty land - empty, at least, of European settlement - the English assumed the attitude that the French had abandoned any claim they may have had to the land. In 1744, they asserted their right to the "empty" Ohio country by signing a treaty with the Iroquois Confederacy, called the Treaty of Lancaster. In the treaty, the Iroquois ceded all their remaining claim to the Shenandoah Valley to the English Crown - or so they thought. The actual terms of the document ceded any claim they had on all the lands within the 1609 Chartered boundaries of Virginia, which Virginia considered to extend indefinitely to the west, even to the Pacific. And this treaty seems to have been the first attempt by the British to actually act on a claim to the Ohio Country - a claim first expressed, in writing, in the 1609 amendment to the Virginia Company's charter.. There is no mention in the treaty, however, of any claim to the land; rather, the document is actually more of a commercial transaction. There is certainly no mention of the much earlier, and much vaguer, claim by Cabot.

Regardless of the presence or absence of any earlier claim, however, there was a problem - the land in question was not occupied by the Iroquois with whom the British had signed the treaty. It was actually occupied by a mix of Shawnee and Miami tribal groups, and a third group called the Mingo, who were a group of several tribal groups previously pushed out of their own lands to the east, when it was taken over by the Iroquois.

Nonetheless, acting pursuant to the agreement with the Iroquois, in 1747 a group of influential Virginians formed a company called "The Ohio Company of Virginia", and petitioned the Crown for permission to establish a settlement in the treaty lands, near present-day Pittsburgh. The Crown granted the petition in 1748. The Mingo signed a separate treaty with the British at Lancaster in 1748, agreeing to trade only with them.

In the meantime, British fur traders had been crossing the Alleghenies into the Ohio country since the 1720's, trapping and trading with the natives. From 1744 to 1748, the French and British fought King George's War; during the war, the British navy blockaded New France so successfully that British traders were able to supplant the French as the primary trading party with the natives in the Ohio country. By the end of the war, this activity had grown to the extent that some British traders had even established small trading posts and small stockades in the Ohio country. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ending the war, failed to resolve the question of boundaries in the Ohio country.

In response to all this activity, in 1749 the Marquis de la Galissoniere, governor of Canada, ordered Pierre Celeron de Bienville, Captain in the Department of Marine and commander of Fort Niagra, to begin a campaign to fortify the French claim on the Ohio country by strengthening relations with the Indian tribes, and by mounting an expedition down the Ohio River, placing markers along the route proclaiming French ownership. They also stepped up efforts to expel British fur traders from the Ohio country, expelling many of them, or capturing them and removing them to France.

This all prefaced another expedition that could, in fact, be considered the answer to your question. In 1750, the Ohio Company hired Christopher Gist, assisted by George Croghan, to surreptitiously explore and survey the region. Based on his subsequent surveys, the Ohio company proceeded to establish several settlements in the Ohio country. And it was this aggressive movement, by the British into the Ohio country, that provoked the French reaction that ultimately led to the start of the French and Indian War in 1754.

In 1753, governor Galissoniere again sent Captain Bienville into the Ohio country, this time to build a string of forts, intended to keep the British out. Bienville built a series of 4 forts, at Lake Erie, and along the Allegheny River and its tributary French Creek, that would eventually include Fort Duquesne, at present-day Pittsburgh. While this campaign was in progress, in December 1753 Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia dispatched 21-year old militia major George Washington to fort le Boeuf, on French Creek, just a few miles from Lake Erie, to deliver a letter protesting the construction of the forts. Governor Dinwiddie's letter made a vague reference to how "The Lands upon the River Ohio, in the Western parts of the Colony of Virginia, are so notoriously known to be the Property of the Crown of Great-Britain..." No reference was made to explain how the lands are the "Property of the Crown".

The fort's commander, the Chevalier Legardeur de St. Pierre, responded with a letter to Governor Dinwiddie, rejecting the governor's claim, and the demand that the French return to Canada.

When Washington delivered this letter to Governor Dinwiddie, the Governor immediately, in January 1754, dispatched a company of men to the Forks of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela rivers - the site of present-day Pittsburgh - to begin construction of a fort. He also empowered Washington to raise and equip a troop of men to move into the territory to occupy the fort, and to forestall any French attempt to establish a presence in the area. He also endeavored to gain support of the other colonies, and the House of Burgesses of Virginia, for a military expedition, but the response was tepid at best. Some of the burgesses even expressed doubts about the King's claim to the disputed territory; they were aware of no explicit basis for the claim. Governor Dinwiddie's response failed to answer their doubts; rather, he railed "that an English legislature should presume to doubt the right of his majesty to the interior parts of this continent, the back part of his dominions!" The governor, however, failed to advance any actual basis for the Crown's claim to the Ohio country.

In April, 1754, Washington, with 150 men, crossed the Alleghenies, intending to occupy the fort being built at the forks of the Ohio. He was too late; a large French force - 1,000 men - had already arrived and the commander had ordered the 50 or so British building the fort there to leave. The French then demolished the small fort, and began construction of a much larger fort. They would name this fort Fort Duquesne.

When Washington, still 140 miles from the fort, learned of these events, he decided to await reinforcements, rather than withdraw. Subsequently, on May 25, Washington ambushed a French scouting party, killing the French commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and nine other soldiers.

The French and Indian War had begun.

And through all of this, nary a mention, ever, by anyone, anywhere, of any claim originally made to land in North America by the adventurer John Cabot.