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State cessions are the western territories of the United States lying between the original 13 states and the Mississippi River where state claims were either relinquished or ceded to the federal government.
North of the Ohio River the land would become the Northwest Territory in 1787, the first public domain of the nation. State cessions south of the Ohio River came later and were nominal, with the condition that slavery must be allowed. The formal legislative process began in 1780 and was completed in 1802.
The cessions were an unintended consequence of the 1776 offer of the Second Continental Congress to grant land in exchange for military service during the American Revolutionary War, made at a time when Congress did not have the land with which to honor the obligation. A simultaneous but separate issue was in determining the status of the western territories ceded by Great Britain to the United States.
The remedy adopted, to create a public domain of the United States out of the western territories, would solve both problems and begin an epoch in American political history. However, it would first be necessary to extinguish the competing state claims to these lands. This was accomplished by the state cessions.
As well as their claims on the western territories, a number of states also held claims to parts of other states. These would be settled as a part of the same legislative process that resulted in the state cessions of their territorial claims, but are not considered a part of those state cessions.