Did the King, or State of Great Britain directly own any land or buildings in the 13 American colonies? If so, what happened to this land? Was it seized by the individual colonial governments, or by the United States government? Was it later purchased from the King/Great Britain? If not, was all crown property held by the colony, and thus independence severed the property’s ties to the crown?
The British still manned some forts, many around the Great Lakes, until the Jay Treaty in 1794. One of those was Fort Detroit, then known as Fort Lernoult.
~Max
The Treaty of Paris explicitly ceded any such property:Treaty of Paris (1783) - Wikipedia
1. Britain acknowledges the United States (New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia[16]) to be free, sovereign, and independent states, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, property, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof,
In the Treaty of Paris Britain agreed to evacuate forts with all convenient speed but in practice they did not do so until after the Jay Treaty. For example the British built a fort within the territory of the United States (Fort Miami) during the Ohio war, 1794. This was to discourage an American assault on Fort Detroit.
~Max
The Treaty of Paris clause was the kind of information I was looking for. The continued use of Fort Detroit after the war was also quite interesting. Thanks!
Canada still has a lot of ‘crown’ land, so designated. But we really just kept the name, the British crown has zero say or ownership over it.
The states succeeded as owner of crown property situated in their respective territories. This is what generally happens when a new country is formed by secession from an existing polity.
Right. It’s now designated on title as owned by “the Crown in right of Canada” “the Crown in right of Ontario”, etc.
It’s not the British Crown that’s being referred to in “crown land” here. It’s the Canadian Crown now. Elizabeth II is the Head of State of 16 countries (the so-called Commonwealth Realms). It may be one person, but she holds 16 different offices that are distinct from each other. For us she’s the Queen of Canada, not of the United Kingdom.
And the Queen of the United Kingdom doesn’t have any say over crown land in the UK, either.
That cannot be presumed. There are many examples of one state holding legal title to land in another sovereign state. Absent some sort of intervention, the British Crown would continue to hold title to the land in its former colonies, an obviously awkward situation. The Treaty of Paris resolved this situation. Britain conceded all its interests in the colonies, in exchange for peace.
An alternative could have been each state seizing crown property by eminent domain. Indeed, this may have happened, and the Treaty of Paris merely codified an agree to not contest the siezure.
State succession, the question of what happens to the rights and obligations of a state when there is a change in the existence of states (e.g. by means of secession, or dismembration), is one of the messiest and most controversial areas of international law; when an instance of succession occurs, it is usually dealt with ad hoc, and it’s difficult to distil general principles out of these case-specific solution. There is an international convention of 1983 that attempts to address some of these issues (it’s one in a series of several conventions on state succession). Only relatively few countries signed it, and even for those who did it hasn’t entered into force yet. It’s also disputed to what extent the provisions of this convention have reached the status of binding customary law. So the situation is messy.
Anyway, Article 15 of the convention does stipulate that when a newly formed state achieves independence, immovable property (in other words, land and the buildings on it) which the former state owns on the territory of the new state passes to that new state. So that (admittedly questionable) convention does create a presumption. The two states are, of course, to stipulate otherwise by means of mutual agreement.
It is, of course, possible for one state to own land on the territory of another; many countries own, for instance, embassies in another state’s capital. But here we are not concerned with the general possibility of a state owning land to another; we’re concerned with the question whether the title to that land (in the sense of ownership, not the sense of territorial sovereignty) passes ipso facto as a consequence of independence. The 1983 convention, at least, says it does.
But if the successor state doesn’t sign the treaty?
I’ll let myself out. 
IIRC Fort Sumter was still occupied by the USA despite the state it was in (South Carolina) seceding, since the USA did not agree to the secession. (did not sign any treaty) I gather that issue was dealt with in a practical manner as would be most such disputes of ownership.
Yup. “The Crown” in Commonwealth realm law-speak is a synonym for terms like “the State” or “the United States” or whatever, used in common-law jurisdictions with republican constitutions. It doesn’t refer to the head of state, but to the state itself.
In addition to Crown lands, the other common use of “the Crown” is to refer to the Crown prosecutor, in those realms where a criminal charge is brought in the name of Her Majesty.
That’s where the customary law issue I hinted at comes in. If the principles of the 1983 convention are also part of customary law (which is disputed), then they are binding on the successor state even without becoming a party to it.