Northwest Ordinance

A 1787 law established a territorial government and a process for admitting new states from lands northwest of the Ohio River. It also barred slavery in the territory and set rules for civil liberties and relations with Indigenous nations.

Northwest Territory: A territory organized by the United States in 1787 from lands northwest of the Ohio River. The ordinance established the government and statehood process for this territory.
Articles of Confederation: The first constitution of the United States, in force from 1781 to 1789. Congress enacted the ordinance under this government, which had limited power over national affairs.
Ohio: A state in the Midwestern United States, admitted to the Union in 1803. Ohio was the first state admitted from the territory organized under the ordinance.
Slavery in the United States: The system of legally sanctioned enslavement that existed in the United States until its abolition nationwide in 1865. The ordinance barred slavery in its territory while slavery remained legal in much of the country.
Territorial government: A provisional administration through which the United States governed an organized territory before statehood. The ordinance specified how the Northwest Territory would be governed before its population could form a state.
Land Ordinance of 1785: A congressional law that established a rectangular survey system for western lands north of the Ohio River. It organized land sales; the 1787 ordinance supplied a governing framework for the same region.
Indiana: A Midwestern U.S. state admitted to the Union in 1816. Indiana emerged from the Northwest Territory under the ordinance's territorial framework.
Fugitive slave clause: A clause in the United States Constitution requiring the return of people escaping slavery to those claiming them as enslaved. The ordinance prohibited slavery locally but required the return of people escaping enslavement into the territory.
Enabling Act: A federal law authorizing a territory to organize a government and seek admission as a state. The ordinance's population thresholds and constitutional process anticipated later state-enabling laws.
Land Ordinance of 1784: A proposal by Thomas Jefferson for organizing western territories and admitting new states. Its ideas about territorial divisions and equal statehood helped shape the later ordinance.

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