by Roberto Alvarez-Galloso

Created on: June 06, 2010

The underwriter has decided to write about the history of how Ohio bécame a state since he was born and raised there. In order to write about Ohio, the bigger history has to be investigated.

Ohio [as well as other states in the Midwest and Louisiana] belonged to France. Great Britain managed to obtain control of the Midwest including Ohio under the Treaty of Paris in 1763. King George III and the British Government prohibited any migration from what were the Thirteen Colonies to the Midwest.

The response of the people who wanted to move to the Midwest was simply that they were going to do it anyway. The people started to settle in what is now Ohio and started to confiscate territory from the Indigenous People.

The Commonwealth of Virginia and Massachusetts laid claim to the area and sent settlers to what is now Ohio.

The American Revolution and its aftermath increased the migration to the Midwest including Ohio and the Northwest Territory was formed in 1787. It was composed of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

The Northwest Territory was governed by Arthur St. Clair who wanted to maintain a semblance of stability in the area. He was a Federalist who wanted to postpone the eventual carving up of his territory into different states.

The Democratic Republican Party had other plans and presented their ideas in 1801 before Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was recently elected and inaugurated as the Third President of the United States of America under the Democratic Republican Party.

He lent support to the idea of statehood for Ohio by signing into law the Enabling Act of 1802 which created the name of Ohio for the territory to be carved out from the one area of the Northwest Territory.

The Enabling Act also set the present boundaries of the State Of Ohio.

The hard part was about to begin with the meeting of the legislature under the guise of Edward Tiffin. The Constitutional Convention met in November 1802 while Northwest Territory Governor St. Clair voiced his opposition to Thomas Jefferson and his government.

Thomas Jefferson removed St. Clair as governor and the process for the statehood of Ohio gathered steam. The state seal was approved with the sun shining over a group of mountains and a river.

Edward Tiffin was elected Governor of the State Of Ohio and he took office on the 1st of March 1803. The Constitution of the State of Ohio at that time only provided the right to vote for white males. The other groups eventually waited for their turn as Ohio evolved.

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