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Description

One of the earliest obtainable map of Wisconsin Territory

Important early map of Wisconsin Territory, published by the US State Survey, in anticipation of Wisconsin becoming a territory in 1836.

The colored tract of land shows the area ceded by Chippewa, Ottawa & Pottawatomie in the Treaty of Chicago in 1833.

The map includes Inset maps of:

  • Outlet of the Milwaukee River
  • Connection of the Private Claims with the Public Surveys at Green Bay

The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized incorporated territory of the United States which existed from July 3, 1836, until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Territory initially included all of the present-day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and part of the Dakotas east of the Missouri River. Much of the Territory had originally been part of the Northwest Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1783. The portion that was formerly part of the Northwest Territory and which later became the state of Wisconsin was part of the Indiana Territory when this was formed in 1800. In 1809, it became part of the Illinois Territory. When Illinois was about to become a state in 1818, this area was joined to the Michigan Territory. Wisconsin Territory was next split off from Michigan Territory in 1836 as the state of Michigan prepared for statehood. In 1838, the section of the territory to the west of the Mississippi became the Iowa Territory.

Most of the remaining land of the original Wisconsin Territory was originally part of the Louisiana Purchase, though a small fraction was part of a parcel ceded by Great Britain in 1818. This land west of the Mississippi had been split off from the Missouri Territory in 1821 and attached to the Michigan Territory in 1834. In 1838, the Iowa Territory was formed, reducing the Wisconsin Territory to the boundaries for the next ten years; upon granting statehood to Wisconsin, its boundaries were once again reduced, to their present location.