NORTHWESTERN
TERRITORY, THE. The Congress was in session in New York
City while the convention that framed the national Constitution was
sitting in Philadelphia. That body performed an act at that session
second only in importance to the crowning act of the convention at
Philadelphia. On July 11, 1787, a committee, of which Nathan Dane, of
Massachusetts, was chairman, reported " An ordinance for the government
of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio." This
territory was limited to the ceded lands in that region. This report,
embodied in a bill, contained a special proviso that the estates of all
persons dying intestate in the territory should be equally divided among
all the children or next of kin in equal degree, thus striking a fatal
blow at the unjust law of primogeniture. It also provided and declared
that " 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 fully convicted." This ordinance was adopted on
the 13th, after adding a clause relative to the reclamation of fugitives
from labor, similar to that which was incorporated in the national
Constitution a few weeks later. This ordinance, and the fact that Indian
titles to 17,000,000 acres of land in that region had lately been
extinguished by treaty with several of the tribes (the Six Nations,
Wyandottes, Delawares, and Shawnees), caused a sudden and great influx
of settlers into the country along the northern banks of the Ohio. The
Northwest Territory so established included the present States of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It is estimated that within
a year following the organization of the territory full 20,000 men,
women, and children passed down the Ohio River to become settlers upon
its banks. See ORDINANCE OF 1787. |