The formation of new US states from the original 13 colonies

In fact, this map shows us how the 13 colonies stretched further into the interior with their claims. Sometimes they even overlapped, as was the case with New York and Virginia, and Virginia even claimed this whole area up to the Great Lakes. When the Revolutionary War ended and the British ceded their land east of the Mississippi River and west of the Proclamation Line, these lands were claimed by the 13 colonies individually, and federal negotiations had to take place to set the permanent boundaries. This map shows us that process, which came to be known as State Cessions, where most of the 13 colonies ended up ceding all of their western claims to the federal government in order to allow the establishment of new states. New York and Virginia had the largest claims and so they ceded the most land. Interestingly, New York claimed what would then become West Virginia. Massachusetts and Connecticut also ceded some strips of land in in the Great Lakes area, and North Carolina ceded what would then become Tennessee. Georgia, in turn, ceded what would become North Alabama and Mississippi. And so, one could technically say that all these eastern interior states were formed from the claimed territory of the initial 13 colonies, but it would be perhaps a stretch to say that they split from them. Because the same can be said with some of the original 13 colonies too, which themselves formed from common territory of specific English colonies. For instance, the Massachusetts Bay Colony initially included parts of New Hampshire and most of Maine, and Rhode Island was a part of the territory claimed by Connecticut until 1728, the same way Delaware was part of Maryland's territorial claim until 1767. Vermont's case is a little different, as its territory was arguably part of the province of New York between 1664 and 1777. When the American Revolution came, Vermont seceded from New York and became self-governing, it ended up being granted statehood in its own right in 1791 and so it was the first state in the union which had not been a separate British colony.