Why Do We Have Two Virginias, Two Carolinas, And Two Dakotas?

Although the USA is officially made up of 50 states, some of them are, let's face it, dishonest. Consider Hawaii, which is legally entitled to be its nation since it is separated from the other states by roughly 3,860 kilometers (2,400 miles) of ocean, or Alaska, which is unquestionably a part of Canada.

Then there are the states that have two states each: your Carolinas, Virginias, and Dakotas. These three states, for whatever reason, made the decision to divide into North and South, or West and, well, not West, at some point.

Even though fifty is a good round figure, it feels like more work to break three states into six for such a small payoff. What made them do it, then?

Two Dakotas—why?

When Dakota Territory (singular) was originally admitted to the Union in 1861, its area was enormous in relation to the state's current borders. Not only was it the size of the two present-day Dakota states put together, but it also included practically all of Montana and Wyoming under its boundaries. Almost half of the area that was Dakota Territory

The Dakotas were reduced to essentially what they are today after some fairly dramatic boundary redrawing with neighboring Idaho Territory and the loss of Wyoming Territory in 1868, but it would take three more years for them to formally separate into two. What, then, led to the divorce?

Colonialism and capitalism combined brutally to precipitate the divide, as has been the case with most of US expansionism throughout history. To put that in perspective, interactions occurred between the Native Americans of Dakota Territory (the term "Dakota" originates from the Dakota Sioux tribe, although many other tribes also lived there) and the comparatively small number of white explorers, traders, and military personnel who passed through the region prior to the mid-1860s.

According to PBS's American Experience, "the Black Hills were considered sacred grounds for the Sioux (also known as the Lakota) and Cheyenne Indians, and the Treaty of Fort Laramie granted the Sioux nation ownership of them." "On the recently established Great Sioux Reservation, the Native Americans would reside there."

However, to look into the possible natural resources in the area, the US government dispatched a military expedition in 1874 under the command of General Custer, yes, that General Custer. Sadly, the expedition's confirmation of gold in the area attracted thousands of white people to the Black Hills, which fuelled tensions between the white population and Native Americans and ultimately resulted in the Great Sioux War of 1876 and Custer's Last Stand.

The population of the southern portion of the Territory increased dramatically as a result, rising from about 12,000 in 1870 to over 98,000 in 1880. In the meantime, the north, which was primarily populated by farmers and homesteaders, remained largely deserted.

Thus, snobbery was eventually the cause of the division between the states of North and South Dakota. According to history professor Kimberly Porter of the University of North Dakota, the territory's north was perceived by people in the south as "too much controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, and fur traders" in 2016. In other words, "the south half did not like the north half," she stated.

The South chose to pursue statehood since it already had a large enough population to meet the requirements. By yourself. The federal government's approach, Porter noted, was essentially to "either do it as one very large state, Dakota or wait until you have enough people on both sides to be two separate states," as none of its several attempts to gain statehood were successful.

That would not occur until November 2, 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison officially admitted the two states to the Union. It is lost to time which one became a state first; Harrison is said to have scrambled the documents first and signed them without first verifying the order.

Two Virginias—why?

Originally, "Virginia" simply referred to the regions of North America that the English had claimed. In other words, it included most of the contiguous United States of today as well as a sizable portion of Canada. The Second Charter of Virginia, written in 1609, defined its boundaries as follows: "from the Point of Land, called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Northward, two hundred miles, and [...] all along the Sea Coast to the Southward, two hundred Miles, and all that Space and Circuit of Land, lying from the Sea Coast of the Precinct aforesaid, up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest."

In a 1999 paper, geographical historian Karl Phillips of George Mason University stated, "Virginia was the mother of the colonies." "Virginia was divided into the other original colonies either directly or indirectly."

But during the following few decades, the colony's size drastically decreased, and eventually, if you combine the two states, the boundaries of Virginia settled to roughly what they are now. Virginia would not be divided into its eastern and western portions until the Civil War, and the reason for this is just as dire as you might expect given that history.

It had previously been a part of Virginia, but western Virginia seceded from Virginia after Virginia left the Union, the author wrote.

Naturally, "legally, that was precisely what it did not do," as Stein noted; just as it was unlawful to secede from the Union, it was also unlawful to secede from a state. Why even bother? The western part of the state had to go to great lengths to break away from the east.

Stein stated, "The region opposed slavery, but there was more to it than that. That is the short answer." He argued that Western Virginians' views towards the enslavement of others were frequently motivated by the reality that they could not afford to do so, rather than being solely moral. That reasoning wasn't always as, uh, sinister as it seems either: at the time, voting rights were contingent on property ownership, which included individuals. While not the worst off group, Virginians without slaves were being systematically deprived of their ability to vote by those who did.

Although they were unable to vote, slaves in Virginia were considered to be three-fifths of a person when allocating representation in the state legislature, It "resulted in slave regions having greater representation than nonslave regions," as Stein noted.

Thus, as the Judge Alston G. Dayton observed a few decades later, individuals in the West were "dumbfounded" when Virginia decided to secede in 1860. "They started questioning each other as to why they had been so deceived and why it was their will that they should be forced into disunity and dishonor."

He responded, "They would not bear it." "They would protest, form a new state of their own, and remain loyal to the Stars and Stripes by seceding from the seceding Virginia."

On June 20, 1863, West Virginia was formally admitted as a state, and its constitution called for the emancipation of local slaves. Abraham Lincoln, the president who officially ratified it, acknowledged that "the admission of the new State turns that much slave soil to free; and thus, is a certain, and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the rebellion," even though he wasn't exactly happy about the precedent being set by splitting one state into two.

To put it another way, while he wasn't happy about it, they needed all the pro-Union states they could obtain in 1862. Thus, West Virginia is free to exist as a state.

Two Carolinas—why?

The Carolinas' divorce was, by all accounts, more cordial than that of the Dakotas and Virginias; it was a no-fault divorce, rather than the product of irreconcilable disagreements.

According to Stein's 2008 book How the States Got Their Shapes, "South Carolina was originally joined with North Carolina as, simply, the Carolina Colony." The state of Carolina was first chartered in 1629 by King Charles I as a favor to a political ally named Robert Heath. Heath was granted all land between the Atlantic Ocean on the east, the Pacific Ocean on the west, the middle of Albemarle Sound on the north, and the St. Mathias River (now known as the St. Mary's River) on the south.

It might come as a surprise to learn that Heath wasn't interested in his gift given that it produced an extraordinarily large tract of land, similar to the original boundaries of Virginia. Why would he, too? The region that is now the Carolinas was most famous at the period for illness, uprisings, hostilities with Native Americans, and, of course, Blackbeard.

As a result, Heath disregarded his gift; in fact, he disregarded it for so long that it was nullified. In 1663, following the outbreak and conclusion of a civil war in England, the establishment and dissolution of a republic, and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the son of Charles I, the new king, gave the gift to a group of his allies known as the Lords Proprietors.

This time, people did enter the colony and settled in two different areas: Charleston in the south and Albemarle Sound in the north. Similar to Virginia, there existed a demographic divide between the two groups, with the majority of the northern colonists being former Chesapeake colonies' indentured servants, and the affluent, slave-owning planters residing to the south of the colony.

It makes sense why a group of wealthy Englishmen in the 17th century would have traveled roughly 644 kilometers (400 miles) between the two hubs. This distance may not seem like much to someone from, say, Texas, but it is significantly longer than traveling from London to Paris and roughly equal to traveling from London to Edinburgh.

"The colonial government was under increasing pressure due to the distance between these regions and the disparities in the backgrounds and levels of prosperity of their settlers," according to Stein. In 1712, following several years of governance as de facto distinct states, the two were formally split into North and South Carolina.