Northwest Ordinance (1787), a measure adopted by the
Continental Congress, acting under the
Articles of Confederation, to provide an orderly system of government leading to statehood for the territory north and west of the Ohio River.In 1789, after ratification of the
Constitution, Congress reenacted the ordinance with minor modifications.
When the
Revolutionary War began, seven states claimed lands in the Transappalachian west on the basis of their colonial charters or treaties with Native Americans. As the war grew more protracted and costly, these states faced growing pressure to cede the lands to Congress to provide funds (through land sales) to pay war debts and soldiers' pensions. By 1786, Congress controlled most of the Ohio territory.
Congress faced three problems: governing the region, selling the land, and dealing with the numerous Native American inhabitants of the region. Congress was committed to establishing republican governments in the territory and to the formation of states that would join the union on an equal basis with the existing states. Some in Congress also feared that unruly westerners might try to form states independent of the nascent United States. Addressing these concerns, a committee chaired by Thomas
Jefferson produced a general statement of principles (often called the “Ordinance of 1784”) that recommended moving the western territory toward statehood in stages of increasing self‐government.
Congress addressed the land‐sale issue in the Ordinance of 1785. It directed that land be surveyed in six‐mile‐square townships, each containing thirty‐six one‐mile‐square (640 acre) “sections” to be auctioned off for a dollar an acre. One section in each township would be set aside to support education. Most settlers, unable to afford the $640 minimum price, bought farms from land companies and speculators. With land now for sale, Manasseh Cutler, an agent for the Ohio Company (a group of speculators), and others pressured Congress to provide a more specific plan of governance.
The 1787 Ordinance set forth this plan. It called for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the region. Congress would initially appoint a governor and other officials for each future state. When the free adult male population reached five thousand, an elected assembly and an appointed legislative council would jointly elect a nonvoting delegate to Congress. When the territory's population reached sixty thousand free inhabitants, the residents could frame a constitution and apply for statehood. The ordinance also included a bill of rights, a pledge that Indian lands would not be taken without Indian consent, encouragement for the development of schools, and a prohibition on
slavery. (In fact, slavery persisted in the region, becoming a political issue in Indiana and Illinois territories.)
Early settlement clustered along the Ohio River. Native American groups resisted further incursions, encouraged by the British, who retained troops and fur‐trading posts in the region. By 1789, white settlement on lands of the Shawnee, Miami, and other Indian groups led to war. In 1795, an army led by Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) defeated the Algonquian‐speaking peoples of the region at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, forcing them in the Treaty of Greenville to surrender their land claims north of the Ohio. Meanwhile the British agreed, in
Jay's Treaty, to remove their troops. As settlers poured in, Ohio became a state in 1803, Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, Michigan in 1837, and Wisconsin in 1848.
The Northwest Ordinance left an ambiguous legacy. It established the principle that with territorial expansion would come republican government, while simultaneously reflecting an assumption that Native Americans would make way for new settlers. Though the ordinance prohibited slavery, its persistence in the region underscored Abraham
Lincoln's claim, in the
Lincoln‐Douglas debates, that “not only law, but the enforcement of law” was necessary to prevent slavery's expansion.
See also
Education: The Public School Movement;
Fur Trade;
Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800;
Indian Wars;
Land Policy, Federal;
Revolution and Constitution, Era of.
Bibliography
Peter S. Onuf , Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, 1987.
Frederick D. Williams, ed., The Northwest Ordinance: Essays on Its Formation, Provisions, and Legacy, 1989.
Paul G.E. Clemens
