Editing Jefferson Territory (section)

{{Short description|Extralegal U.S. Territory of Jefferson that existed from 1859 to 1861}}
{{distinguish|Jefferson (proposed Southern state)|Jefferson (proposed Pacific state)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
[[File:Jefferson territory.png|300px|thumb|Location of the extralegal Territory of Jefferson in the [[United States of America]] of 1861]]

The '''Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson''' was an extralegal and unrecognized [[United States territory]] that existed in the [[Pike's Peak Gold Rush|Pike's Peak mining region]] from October 24, 1859, until it yielded to the new [[Territory of Colorado]] on June 6, 1861.<ref name="Jefferson Territory">{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hkkRAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA16|journal=The University of Colorado Studies: General Series A|publisher=[[University of Colorado]]|location=[[Boulder, Colorado]]|pages=15–18|author=Frederic L. Paxson |title=The Territory of Jefferson: A Spontaneous Commonwealth|year=1906|volume=3|editor=Francis Ramaley|access-date=November 12, 2023}}</ref> The Jefferson Territory, named for Founding Father and third United States president [[Thomas Jefferson]], included land officially part of the [[Kansas Territory]], the [[Nebraska Territory]], the [[New Mexico Territory]], the [[Utah Territory]], and the [[Washington Territory]], but the region was remote from the governments of those five territories.

The government of the Jefferson Territory, while democratically elected, was never legally recognized by the [[Federal government of the United States|United States government]], although it managed the territory with relatively free rein for 19 months. Many of the laws enacted by the General Assembly of the Territory of Jefferson were reenacted and given official sanction by the new [[Colorado General Assembly]] in 1861.