• The Northwest Ordinance, one of the most significant pre-Constitution legislations, created the Northwest Territory and established a process for states from the territory to be added to the Union.
• The clause in the ordinance that prohibited slavery in the territory effectively made the Ohio River the dividing line between new free and slave states.
• Thomas Jefferson had a plan for creating new states in the western territory and suggested interesting, exotic names.
• Ohio was the first state from the Northwest Territory, added to the Union in 1803.

Before Ohio was a state, the vast, largely uncharted expanse between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, up to the Great Lakes, was known as the Northwest Territory.

Many parties, including the British, French, Spanish, Native American tribes and Eastern states, had previous claims to portions of the territory.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 settled the matter by organizing it as the Northwest Territory and laying the groundwork for the expansion of the United States.

The ordinance was among the most significant legislation created by the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, which governed the U.S. from 1781 to 1789, before the federal government was established by the U.S. Constitution.

Jefferson’s plan for westward expansion

Prior to the American Revolution, to strengthen British and Native American relations, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade expansion of the colonies west of the Appalachian Mountains – an area considered an “Indian reserve.”

The British ceded that land in the 1783 Treaty of Paris following the Revolutionary War, and the new nation was ready to expand west.

The Confederation Congress pressured other states to relinquish their claims on the territory, such as Virginia’s declared boundaries extending “from Sea to Sea.”

Thomas Jefferson proposed the lands west of the Appalachians be divided into 10 states that would be equal to the original 13 colonies.

He suggested interesting names: Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia and Pelisipia. What is now Ohio would have been part of Metropotamia, Washington and Saratoga.

Although a slave owner himself, Jefferson also proposed there be no slavery in the states after 1800.

Congress cut out the state boundaries, exotic names and slavery clause before passing the Land Ordinance of 1784.

Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the territory

That ordinance was superseded by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created incorporated territories led by a governor, a secretary and three judges chosen by Congress.

The Northwest Territory was designed to be carved into “not less than three nor more than five States.” Article 5 outlined a three-stage process for a state to be admitted to the Union. Once a district acquired 60,000 inhabitants, it could apply for statehood.

Slavery was not permitted in the territory. Article 6 states: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

The 13th Amendment used a similar phrase in abolishing slavery in the U.S. in 1865.

The Northwest Ordinance did have a clear fugitive slave clause, though, which allowed enslaved people who had escaped to be taken back to slavery.

Article 6 effectively made the Ohio River the dividing line between territories that prohibited or permitted slavery.

Setting the path to statehood

Under the Land Ordinance of 1785 (a different ordinance than Jefferson’s plan), the land in the Northwest Territory was subdivided into a rectangular grid system of 6-mile townships. The surveyed tracts were sold to individuals and speculative land companies.

John Cleves Symmes bought 311,682 acres between the Great Miami and Little Miami rivers, an area known as the Symmes Purchase, and resold tracts to settlers, such as the pioneers who founded Columbia, Losantiville (Cincinnati) and North Bend.

Most Native American tribes refused to acknowledge treaties signed after the Revolutionary War regarding lands north of the Ohio River that the tribes inhabited. This led to great conflict between the indigenous people and the settlers.

Military expeditions launched from Fort Washington in Cincinnati engaged forces led by Shawnee chief Blue Jacket and Miami chief Little Turtle all across Ohio until Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne won a decisive victory in the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

The peace treaty between the U.S. and Native American tribes really opened up the Northwest Territory for more settlers.

Rather than following the European colonial model, the Northwest Ordinance set a clear path to statehood and equality within the federal government.

Ohio in 1803 became the first new state from the territory, followed by Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837) and Wisconsin (1848).

Writing of the Northwest Ordinance in “The Law in Southwestern Ohio,” Frank G. Davis said, “By leading the Territory step-by-step to statehood, or rather statehoods, it set the pattern for the political and legal development of the entire continental U.S.”