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The New York – New Jersey Line War (also known as the N.J. Line War) refers to a series of skirmishes and raids that took place for over half a century between 1701 and 1765 at the disputed border between two American colonies, the Province of New York and the Province of New Jersey. Border wars were not unusual in the early days of settlements of the colonies and originated in conflicting land claims. Because of ignorance, willful disregard, and legal ambiguities, such conflicts arose involving local settlers until a final settlement was reached. In the largest of these squabbles some 210,000 acres (849.8 km2) of land were at stake between New York and New Jersey. In this situation originally the western and northern border of New Jersey ran "along said River or Bay (the Delaware) to the northward as far as the northward most branch of the said Bay or River, which is in latitude 41 degrees, 40 minutes and crosseth over thence in a straight line to the latitude 41 degrees on Hudson's River." Said point on the Delaware is Cochecton or Station Point. This border, set in 1664, had been acknowledged by both the New York and New Jersey legislatures by 1719. However, the northbound extension of New Jersey was not respected by settlers from New York who moved westward from Orange County. The resulting conflict was carried out by settlers from both sides. In addition, these settlers had to fight off Native Americans who also raided the area during the French and Indian Wars. The last fight broke out in 1765, when the Jerseyans attempted to capture the leaders of the New York faction. Because the fight took place on the Sabbath, neither side used weapons. The New York leaders were captured and kept briefly in the Sussex County jail. The conflict was eventually settled. The King of Great Britain through the royal commission of 7 October 1769 appointed commissioners to establish what would become the permanent and final border that runs southeast from the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers near Port Jervis to the Hudson River. The New York and New Jersey legislatures ratified the compromise in 1772, and the King approved it on 1 September 1773. ==Early settlement== Early in 1665 the Governor of the Royal Colony of New York, Colonel Richard Nicolls, received news that James, the Duke of York, had granted a charter for New Jersey to two court friends, Sir George Carteret and John Lord Berkeley. Governor Nicolls immediately realized that the charter meant the loss of valuable land from the New York colony, and was compelled to write the Duke to tell him that the land comprising New Jersey, as delineated in the charter,
Governor Nicolls believed that the magnitude of the loss was so great that it could have only resulted from a conspiracy against the fortune of the Duke, and he continued his letter by stating,
Thus from the establishment of the colony of New Jersey the leaders of New York realized that they had lost a very valuable territory with great potential. This realization compelled Governor Nicolls and many of his successors to wish and scheme for the reannexation of New Jersey to New York, or at least obtain compensation for its loss. In New York's favor in these efforts was the very charter for New Jersey granted by the Duke. It was based on an inaccurate map created by the Dutch cartographer Nicolas Johannis Visscher in 1654. The Jansson-Visscher map, as it would later become known, established the northernmost branch of the Delaware River at latitude 41°40′ North. Based on this information, the Duke designated the following points as the northern stations for the boundary line between New York and New Jersey:
If the northernmost branch of the Delaware had been found at 41°40′ little doubt would have existed as to the exact location of New Jersey's northern boundary line. But no branch existed at this latitude. The confusion created by this revelation would be capitalized on by New York in order to stall any attempts at establishing the border's exact location and, thus, the legitimacy and stability so necessary for a healthy business environment in the new colony of New Jersey. It would be New York's contention that, since the branch did not exist at this location, the actual border should be much farther south. It was New York's hope that New Jersey, being a much smaller, poorer and less politically connected colony, would eventually have to compromise and move the border south in order to end this draining border dispute. The problems created by this mistake in cartography would begin in 1676, with negotiations between the provinces of East and West Jersey over the location of their mutual partition line, and would not end until 1769, when a Royal commission to solve the New York/New Jersey northern boundary dispute would impose a compromise border line. Some may argue that the dispute continued until 1896, when a joint state commission completed an accurate survey that compensated for measurement distortions caused by local iron ore formations, but for the purposes of this paper, we will follow the dispute—including its complicated political and economic battles and small skirmishes between residents of both states—until the compromise of 1769. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New York – New Jersey Line War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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