| Dictionary: Northwest Territory |
A historical region of the north-central United States extending from the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the Great Lakes. The area was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. It was officially designated a territory in 1787 and later split up into the territories and present-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. Control over the territory was a major issue in the War of 1812.
| 5min Related Video: Northwest Territory |
| US History Encyclopedia: Northwest Territory |
Part of the vast domain ceded by Great Britain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783), the Northwest Territory encompassed the area west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, and north of the Ohio River to the border with British Canada. The "Old Northwest, " as the region later came to be known, eventually included the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. The creation of the Northwest Territory was first implied in the Articles of Confederation (1780), which stipulated that all lands beyond the bounds of the original thirteen states would be owned and administered by the national government.
The establishment of a federal public domain reconciled and negated the competing claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, and New York to lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. While this cleared the way for confederation, the means for administering these lands was not fully established until 1787, when Congress passed An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio. This Northwest Ordinance provided for the orderly survey of all lands into square sections of 640 acres and established the procedures for their sale to individuals and corporations. Besides the grid pattern of states, counties, towns, farms, and roads that would spread out across the continent, the ordinance also established the methods for creating new states and their admission into the Union "on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever."
Although some form of territorial governance continued in the Old Northwest until Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858, the administrative history of the Northwest Territory is fairly brief. The celebrated revolutionary war general Arthur St. Clair established the first territorial government on 15 July 1788. Because of increased migration, Congress in 1800 divided the Northwest Territory for administrative purposes and designated the western portion as the territory of Indiana. The reduced Northwest Territory ceased to exist as an official geopolitical entity in 1803, when the state of Ohio was admitted to the Union and Congress designated the region to the north as the territory of Michigan.
Despite its short duration, the history of the Northwest Territory is marked by some of the most brutal and aggressive warfare in U.S. history. Based on a vision of expanding agricultural settlement and motivated by a desperate need for the revenue that would come from the sale of public lands, federal policy was geared toward the rapid conversion of Indian lands into private property. Native alliances initially took a severe toll on U.S. forces, and at times as much as 80 percent of the entire federal budget went to fighting and removing Indians from their lands. By the end of the short territorial period, Native communities decimated by warfare and disease had moved beyond the bounds of Ohio to areas farther west. The scenario was repeated over the course of three decades, as new states entered the Union and the fertile soils of the Old Northwest were converted into the vast expanse of farms and towns that became a hallmark of the region.
Bibliography
Cayton, Andrew R. L., and Peter S. Onuf. The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Northwest Territory |
Exploration and Early Settlement
Men from New France began to penetrate this rich fur country in the 17th cent.; in 1634, the French explorer Jean Nicolet became the first to enter the region. He was followed by explorers and traders—Radisson and Groseilliers, Duluth, La Salle, Jolliet, Perrot, and Cadillac—as well as by missionaries such as Jogues, Dablon, and Marquette. The Great Lakes region was controlled by a few widely scattered French posts, such as Kaskaskia, Vincennes, Prairie du Chien, and Green Bay; links were established between the Northwest settlements and those in French Louisiana (St. Louis, New Orleans). The two chief posts of the Old Northwest were Detroit and Mackinac (Michilimackinac), but French influence spread among the Native American groups east to the Iroquois country.
In the 18th cent. the Northwest was coveted not only by the British colonists in Canada, but also by those in the American seaboard colonies, who organized the Ohio Company in 1747 for the purpose of extending the Virginia settlements westward. At the same time, the French sought to strengthen their hold on the Northwest by building forts. The clash of British and French interests culminated in the expedition led by George Washington that resulted in the loss of Fort Necessity and the outbreak of the last of the French and Indian Wars. The wars ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, by which the British obtained Canada and the Old Northwest.
British Rule
Almost immediately after the British acquired the region, Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, led an uprising against them (see Pontiac's Rebellion). The Ottawa were somewhat appeased by the British Proclamation of 1763 that closed the region W of the Allegheny Mts. to white settlement in an attempt to protect the Native American fur trade and lands; yet this action caused resentment among the American frontiersmen and contributed to the American Revolution. The mysterious machinations of Robert Rogers, an American frontiersman, further endangered the British hold on the Old Northwest. During the Revolutionary War, an expedition led by the American general George Rogers Clark penetrated deep into the region in 1778–79, in one of the most daring and valuable exploits of the war.
An American Territory
The Old Northwest became U.S. territory in 1783 by the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolution and soon was one of the most pressing problems before the U.S. Congress. The four so-called landed states—Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut—claimed portions of the Old Northwest, while states with no western land claims, especially Maryland, argued that if the claims of the landed states were recognized, the wealth and population of the other states would be attracted to the western lands. The final solution was the cession of all the lands to the U.S. government, which was thus greatly strengthened; New York made its cession in 1780, Virginia in 1784, Massachusetts in 1785, and Connecticut in 1786. Two reserves were kept, the Virginia Military District and the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio. The Ordinance of 1785 established the Township System for surveying, which used a rectangular grid system in order to divide the land.
American Settlement
The Ordinance of 1787 set up the machinery for the organization of territories and the admission of states. Its terms prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory, encouraged free public education, and guaranteed religious freedom and trial by jury. The Ohio Company of Associates, the most active force in early colonization, was followed by later companies that brought settlers into the territory.
British traders, however, opposed American expansion, and the Native Americans were also hostile to their encroachment. A series of campaigns against the indigenous tribes culminated in 1794, when Gen. Anthony Wayne won an American victory at Fallen Timbers; his victory was solidified by the Greenville Treaty of 1795. Meanwhile, Jay's Treaty and subsequent negotiations smoothed out some of the British-American difficulties. The Northwest posts were transferred to Americans in 1796, although British influence remained strong among the Native Americans.
Settlers poured into the southern part of the Territory, and in 1799 a legislature was organized. In 1800 the western part was split off as Indiana Territory, and by 1802, the eastern portion was populated enough to seek admission as a state; it was admitted as Ohio in 1803. Other territories were then formed—Michigan in 1805, Illinois in 1809, and Wisconsin in 1836.
The surviving British traders, however, wanted the Northwest set aside as Native American land, and continued unrest led Tecumseh and Shawnee Prophet to seek a permanent foothold for the Native Americans. Some western Americans, meanwhile, sought to extend the Northwest to Canada. The quarrel over the Northwest was a major cause of the War of 1812. The Treaty of Ghent (see Ghent, Treaty of), which ended the war, solved the problem of the Northwest. Despite opposition from British merchants in the region, Great Britain irrevocably gave the Northwest to the United States.
Bibliography
See H. N. Scheiber, The Old Northwest (1969); H. Bird, War for the West (1971); H. B. Johnson, Order Upon the Land (1976).
| Wikipedia: Northwest Territory |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio.
The Congress of the Confederation enacted the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to provide for the administration of the territories and set rules for admission as a state. On August 7, 1789, the new U.S. Congress affirmed the Ordinance with slight modifications under the Constitution. The territory included all the land of the United States west of Pennsylvania and northwest of the Ohio River. It covered all of the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as the northeastern part of Minnesota. The area covered more than 260,000 square miles (673,000 km²).
Contents |
European exploration of the region began with French Canadian voyageurs in the seventeenth century, followed by French missionaries and French fur traders. French Canadian explorer Jean Nicolet was the first recorded entrant into the region, landing in 1634 at the site of Green Bay, Wisconsin, today (although Étienne Brûlé is stated by some sources as having explored Lake Superior and possibly inland Wisconsin in 1622). The French exercised control from widely separated posts throughout the region they claimed as New France. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the French and Indian Wars.
A new colony, named Charlotina, was proposed for the Southern Great Lakes region. However, facing armed opposition by Native Americans, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains until treaties had been negotiated with the Native Americans. This action angered American colonists interested in expansion. In 1774, by the Quebec Act, the region was annexed to the Province of Quebec in order to provide a civil government and to centralize British administration of the Montreal based fur trade. The prohibition of settlement west of the Appalachians remained and this was a contributing factor to the American Revolution.
Britain ceded the area north of the Ohio River and west of the Appalachians to the United States at the end of the American Revolutionary War with the Treaty of Paris (1783), but the British continued to maintain a presence in the region as late as 1815, the end of the War of 1812.
Several states (Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut) then had competing claims on the territory. Other states, such as Maryland, refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation so long as these states were allowed to keep their western territory, fearing that those states could continue to grow and tip the balance of power in their favor under the proposed system of federal government. As a concession in order to obtain ratification, these states ceded their claims on the territory to the U.S. government: New York in 1780, Virginia in 1784, Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1785. So the majority of the territory became public land owned by the U.S. government. Virginia and Connecticut reserved the land of two areas to use as compensation to military veterans: The Virginia Military District and the Connecticut Western Reserve. In this way, the United States included territory and people outside any of the states.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a standardized system for surveying the land into saleable lots, although Ohio had already been partially surveyed several times using different methods, resulting in a patchwork of land surveys in Ohio. Some older French communities' property claims based on earlier systems of long, narrow lots also were retained. The rest of the Northwest Territory was divided into roughly uniform square townships and sections, which facilitated land sales and development.
Difficulties with Native American tribes and with British trading outposts presented continuing obstacles for American expansion until military campaigns of General "Mad" Anthony Wayne against the Native Americans culminated with victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. Jay's Treaty, in 1794, temporarily helped to smooth relations with British traders in the region, where British citizens outnumbered American citizens throughout the 1780s. Ongoing disputes with the British over the region was a contributing factor to the War of 1812. Britain irrevocably ceded claim to the Northwest Territory with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.
When the territory was created, it was inhabited by about 45,000 Native Americans and 4,000 traders, mostly French and British – although both groups included the Metis, a sizeable group descended from Native women married to European or Canadian traders who established a unique culture that ruled the Upper Midwest for more than a century[citation needed] before American settlement officially began at Marietta, Ohio, on April 7, 1788, with the arrival of forty-eight pioneers. The first governor of the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair, formally established the government on July 15, 1788, at Marietta. His original plan called for the organization of five initial counties: Washington (Ohio east of the Scioto River), Hamilton (Ohio between the Scioto and the Miami Rivers), Knox (Indiana and eastern Illinois), St. Clair (Illinois and Wisconsin), and Wayne (Michigan).
On July 4, 1800, in preparation for Ohio's statehood, the Indiana Territory was carved out, encompassing all land west of the present Indiana-Ohio border and its northward extension to Lake Superior, reducing the Northwest Territory to present day Ohio and the eastern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Ohio was admitted as a state on March 1, 1803, at the same time the remaining land was annexed to Indiana Territory, and the Northwest Territory went out of existence.
At first, the territory had a modified form of martial law. The governor was also the senior army officer within the territory, and he combined legislative and executive authority. But a supreme court was established, and he shared legislative powers with the court. County governments were organized as soon as the population was sufficient, and these assumed local administrative and judicial functions. Washington County was the first of these, at Marietta in 1788. This was an important event, as this court was the first establishment of civil and criminal law in the pioneer country.
As soon as the number of free male settlers exceeded 5,000, the Territorial Legislature was to be created, and this happened in 1798. The full mechanisms of government were put in place, as outlined in the Northwest Ordinance. A bicameral legislature consisted of a House of Representatives and a Council. The first House had 22 representatives, two elected by each county. The House then nominated 10 citizens to be Council members. The nominations were sent to the U.S. Congress, which appointed five of them as the Council. This assembly became the legislature of the Territory, although the governor retained veto power.
Article VI of the Articles of Compact within the Northwest Ordinance prohibited the owning of slaves within the Northwest Territory. However, territorial governments evaded this law by use of indenture laws[1]. The Articles of Compact prohibited legal discrimination on the basis of religion within the territory.
The township formula created by Thomas Jefferson was first implemented in the Northwest Territory through the Land Ordinance of 1785. The square surveys of the Northwest Territory would become a hallmark of the Midwest, as sections, townships, counties (and states) were laid out scientifically, and land was sold quickly and efficiently (although not without some speculative aberrations).
Arthur St. Clair was the territory's governor until November 1802, when President Thomas Jefferson removed him from office and appointed Charles Willing Byrd, who served the position until Ohio became a state and elected their first governor, Edward Tiffin, on March 3, 1803 [1]. The original supreme court was made up of John Cleves Symmes, James Mitchell Varnum, and Samuel Holden Parsons. There were three secretaries: Winthrop Sargent (July 9, 1788–May 31, 1798); William Henry Harrison (June 29, 1798–December 31, 1799); and Charles Willing Byrd (January 1, 1800–March 1, 1803).
The General Assembly of the Northwest Territory consisted of a Legislative Council (five members chosen by Congress) and a House of Representatives consisting of 22 members elected by the male freeholders in nine counties. The first session of the Assembly was held in September 1799. Its first important task was to select a non-voting delegate to the U.S. Congress. Locked in a power struggle with Governor St. Clair, the legislature narrowly elected William Henry Harrison as the first delegate over the governor's son, Arthur St. Clair, Jr. Subsequent congressional delegates were William McMillan (1800–1801) and Paul Fearing (1801–1803).
The territory's first common pleas court opened at Marietta on 2 September 1788. Its first judges were General Rufus Putnam, General Benjamin Tupper, and Colonel Archibald Crary. Paul Fearing became the first attorney to practice in the territory, and Colonel William Stacy was foreman of the first grand jury.[2]
Winthrop Sargent, the first secretary of the territory, married Roewena Tupper, daughter of Gen. Benjamin Tupper, on 6 February 1789 at Marietta in the first marriage ceremony held within the Northwest Territory.[3]
13 counties were formed by Governor Arthur St. Clair during the territory's existence:
Knox, Randolph and St. Clair counties were separated from the territory effective July 4, 1800, and, along with the western part of Wayne County, and unorganized lands in what are now Minnesota and Wisconsin, became the Indiana Territory.
The Northwest Territory ceased to exist upon Ohio statehood on March 1, 1803; the lands in Ohio that were previously part of Wayne County but not included in Trumbull County reverted to an unorganized status until new counties could be formed in the years to come. The remainder of Wayne County, roughly the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula, was attached to Indiana Territory.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | Indian Removal |
| Territorial Governments |
| Western Lands |
 | Did the northwest ordinance of 1787 prohibit slavery in the northwest territory? Read answer... |
| How did areas in the northwest territory become states under the northwest ordinance? Read answer... |
| What is the population of Northwest Territory? Read answer... |
 | How did the northwest ordinence of 1787 affect education in northwest territory? |
| How did the northwest ordinance of 1787 affect education in the northwest territory? |
| The northwest territory was the confederation's greatest asset discuss the proposals to manage settlement of the new territory how did they shape the nation's expansion? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Northwest Territory". Read more |
Mentioned in
|
