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Congressional Creation of Illinois Territory

When: February 3, 1809
Where: Seat of the U.S. Congress (inferred institutional context; not stated in supplied passages)
Part of: Illinois Territory created from the western Indiana Territory

The 10th U.S. Congress passed legislation on February 3, 1809, establishing the Illinois Territory from western Indiana lands.

Legislation was enacted following petitions from Mississippi River residents regarding administrative difficulties. The territory existed from March 1, 1809, until 1818, when its southern portion was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois.

Sources

Illinois Territory Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.