page_title: Michigan Territory
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Michigan Territory / History and government / Organization
caption_attribution_description: Map of en:Michigan Territory from 1833 until 1836; created October 2004 by Jengod. Based on a public domain U.S. government map.
context_page_description: The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroit was the territorial capital.
context_section_description: Michigan Territory was established by an act of the United States Congress on January 11, 1805, effective June 30 of that year. The act defined the territory as "all that part of the Indiana Territory, which lies North of a line drawn east from the southerly bend or extreme of lake Michigan, until it shall intersect lake Erie, and East of a line drawn from the said southerly bend through the middle of said lake to its northern extremity, and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States." A historical marker at a roadside park, approximately three miles east of Naubinway at 46°05′50″N 85°23′51″W, commemorates the northernmost point of Lake Michigan, which is located approximately one mile west of the park.
  The first territorial governor, William Hull, abolished Wayne County and established new districts of his own making, which proved to be short-lived. Lewis Cass became governor in 1813 and promptly undid Hull's work and re-established a third incarnation of Wayne County that included all lands within Michigan Territory that had been ceded by Indians through the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.
  During the War of 1812, following General Isaac Brock's capture of Detroit on August 16, 1812, the Michigan Territory was at least nominally a part of the Province of Upper Canada. On August 24, Colonel Henry Proctor proclaimed the continuation of civil government under existing laws with Proctor acting as Governor and Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward acting as Secretary. On February 4, 1813, Proctor suspended civil government and imposed martial law.
  When Indiana (1816) and Illinois (1818) joined the Union, remnants of their territories were joined to Michigan Territory. An area equal to 30 townships was also transferred from Michigan Territory to Indiana to allow that state access to Lake Michigan. Soon afterward, the federal government rapidly began signing treaties with local Indian tribes and acquiring their lands.
  In 1824, the Michigan Territory graduated to the second grade of territorial status, and the government's power was transferred from the Governor and a handful of judges to the people. The people elected 18 to the Legislative Council, of which nine were approved by the President, and it first sat in council on June 7, 1824. This Council was expanded from nine members to 13 in 1825, with the 13 being chosen by the President from a field of 26.
  The Erie Canal opened in 1825, allowing settlers from New England and New York to reach Michigan by water through Albany and Buffalo.
  In 1834, all of the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase that were as yet unallocated and lay east of the Missouri River (generally, the Dakotas, Iowa and the western half of Minnesota) were attached to the Michigan Territory, an area that was officially characterized as "north of Missouri and east of the Missouri and White Earth Rivers." At this point, Michigan Territory included what is now the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and a large portion of the Dakotas.
  Meanwhile, in 1835, the Toledo War was fought with Ohio because Michigan Territory wanted to retain the disputed "Toledo Strip." The Toledo area of Ohio was finally surrendered in exchange for the western section of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
  Slavery was forbidden in the territory under the Northwest Ordinance, but British and French residents were permitted to retain possession of slaves already owned at the time the territory became organized. Census records show that the slave population in the territory numbered 24 in 1810 and 32 in 1830.  It is believed that those counted as slaves were, in many cases, Indians rather than blacks.
  On July 3, 1836, in preparation for Michigan statehood, the Wisconsin Territory was organized from Michigan Territory, consisting of the present states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and the eastern portion of the Dakotas. Michigan became a state on January 26, 1837, and included the Upper Peninsula  as part of the resolution to the conflict over the Toledo Strip, which had blocked Michigan statehood for several years. Th
caption: Between 1833 and 1836, all the remnants of the old Northwest Territory were part of the Michigan Territory along with portions of the Louisiana Purchase.
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