Definition
The Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance on July 13, 1787, while the Constitutional Convention met in secret in Philadelphia. It created the Northwest Territory north of the Ohio River, to be divided into three to five states, which became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Congress appointed a governor at first, settlers elected an assembly once five thousand free adult men lived there, and a territory with sixty thousand free inhabitants could join the Union on an equal footing with the original states. The Ordinance also guaranteed freedom of religion and trial by jury, encouraged schools, and in Article Six banned slavery in the territory, although it said a person who escaped slavery into the territory could be lawfully reclaimed.
Why it matters on the AP exam
The Ordinance is the best-known success of the national government under the Articles of Confederation, along with the Land Ordinance of 1785. It set the pattern for admitting new states as equals rather than colonies, and its slavery ban made the Ohio River the line between free soil and slave soil in that region. It also promised Native nations good faith and said their lands would not be taken without their consent, yet it allowed wars authorized by Congress, and settlement led to a war that the Native alliance lost in 1794. Questions contrast it with the Proclamation of 1763, which tried to stop settlement west of the Appalachians, while the Ordinance organized settlement and set a path to statehood.
In the sources
“Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
Connections
- Proclamation of 1763: tried to close western land to colonial settlement, while the Ordinance organized it
- Articles of Confederation: the government whose Congress passed it
- Battle of Fallen Timbers: the 1794 battle that decided the war over Native land in the Northwest Territory
- Land Ordinance of 1785: surveyed the same land into townships and set aside a lot in each for schools