Shayne Klein and Fred R. Williams

Main Ideas

The Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to encourage western migration. Powerful land companies made western expansion a business venture. Speculators purchased cheap lands that they hoped to sell at a high profit. To lure settlers, territorial leaders developed a political framework to protect liberty and property. They secured for settlers in the West religious freedom, protection against cruel and unusual punishment, and a government unable to seize land for the public good without first offering the owner just compensation. The Ordinance of 1787 also prohibited slavery. However, its framers compromised with slaveholders when they

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approved a fugitive slave law to force the return of runaway slaves. A controversy surfaced over how to apply Article 6, which both banned and enforced slavery. Leaders in the territory, however, successfully made the article a gradual emancipation law.

Connection with the Curriculum
The Northwest Territory is appropriate for studying American history at the national and state level and for examining critical issues in civics and government.

Teaching Level
Grades 9-12

Materials for Each Student

• The narrative portion of this article

• Maps and activity pages

• Selections from the Ordinance of 1787

Objectives for Each Student

• Identify the physical boundaries of Illinois and the Northwest Territory.

• Identify in the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution the clauses that secured slavery.

• List three reasons why Americans immigrated to the Northwest Territory.

• Describe the debate over slavery and freedom in the Northwest Territory.

• Explain why the Ordinance of 1787 did not successfully abolish slavery.

• Discuss the arguments of historians regarding Article 6's capacity to eliminate slavery.

• Explain how making Article 6 a gradual emancipation law formed the basis for the black laws of Illinois.

Opening the Lesson
Slavery and expansion are two dominant themes in early American history. Have students brainstorm about what they already know about the introduction and spread of slavery up to 1800. Then ask the students to consider the reasons why people would choose to move out of one of the original thirteen states and settle in the West, a place that was little developed by European settlers.

Be sure to read the narrative portion of the article with your students and discuss it with them to ensure their understanding of the contents. Next, have students brainstorm about the origins of Illinois. Finally, have students make the connection between expansion, the Northwest Ordinance, and the slavery debate.

Developing the Lesson

• Help students understand the geography and population of the Northwest Territory.

• Have students review critical documents such as the Ordinance of 1787, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of Illinois.

• Have students role play, explaining why they would immigrate from the North or South. Would their origins influence their opinion on slavery in Illinois, on Jefferson's antislavery proposal, or on Article 6?

• Is there a critical difference in the antislavery bill that Jefferson proposed in 1784 and in what Congress approved in 1787?

Concluding the Lesson

• Have students explain the long-range consequences of the initial interpretation of Article 6, especially during the first twenty years after Illinois entered the Union.

• Have students consider whether national policy influences society and culture at the local level.

Extending the Lesson

• For advanced students in American history, the Northwest Ordinance provides a means to assess the frontier thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner. The Turner thesis, in part, contends that American culture and political ideology developed in the West and then migrated back to the East. The Northwest Ordinance predated both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, yet contains many of their provisions. Do the various provisions of the Northwest Ordinance lend support to Turner's thesis?

Assessing the Lesson

• Teachers can assess learning through student responses to the guided questions provided in activities that follow.

The states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio and parts of Minnesota were formed from the Northwest Territory. The map following reflects the admission dates of these states into the Union, reveals boundaries and latitude and longitude markings, and demonstrates the means of surveying and dividing the land of the Old Northwest.

Use the map to help answer the following questions:

1. What are the natural water boundaries of the Northwest Territory?

2. Which line of latitude formed the northern boundary of Illinois?

3. Which three states bordered the Northwest Territory to the east?

4. Use the scale of miles to determine how long the Northwest Territory was from the southern tip of Illinois to the northern-most point of Michigan.

5. Use the scale of miles to approximate the east-west distance of the Northwest Territory from the eastern edge of Ohio to the western side of Illinois.

6. What geographic reasons might help explain why Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois gained statehood prior to Michigan and Wisconsin?

7. Use the map following that shows how land in the Northwest Territory was divided. Each township consisted of a 6-mile-by-6-mile section of land that was then divided into 36 one-mile-square sections. The article reveals that land in the Old Northwest sometimes sold for as little as eight cents per acre. At that rate, how much would a speculator in the late-eighteenth century pay for one section of land? Note that one section (one-mile-by-one-mile) is 640 acres. What would eight cents buy today?

8. For the sake of a modern comparison, land in many of the urban areas of Illinois sells for more than $50,000 per acre. If a real estate developer had to pay $50,000 an acre for one of the old 640-acre sections of the Northwest Territory, how much would he or she have to pay?

9. The Land Ordinance of 1785 stipulated that the income derived from Section 16 of the 36 sections would be used to support schools. What impact might this feature have on the settlement of the Northwest Territory?

10. Speculate on how the Northwest Territory would have been settled if the grid system for surveying and marketing the lands had not been used.

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	Slaves	Free Blacks	White Men	White Women		Total
NW Territory (1800)	135	500	27,007	23,364		51,006
NW Territory (1820)	1,109	6,584	412,040	374,095		792,719
Illinois (1810)	168	613	6,380	5,121		12,282
Illinois (1820)	919	457	29,401	24,387		55,211

Answer the following questions using the census chart above:

1. How many slaves were in the Northwest Territory in 1800?

2. By 1820, did Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance limit the growth of slavery? Explain your answer.

3. In 1810, what percentage of Illinois' population was slave?

4. In part, the framers of Article 6 intended to protect white laborers from slave competition. Did the plan work?

5. The Northwest Ordinance states that "whenever any of the said States shall have 60,000 free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States..." Illinois gained admission to the Union in 1818. Did Illinois meet the population requirement established in the Northwest Ordinance? What does your answer tell you about the adaptability of the Ordinance or the accuracy of the census data?

6. Both in Illinois and the rest of the Northwest Territory, men outnumbered women. What would help explain this phenomena?

7. Compare the total population of the Northwest Territory in 1800 with the total population of the area in 1820. What does the comparison reveal about western migration during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century?

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Comparative Studies: The Ordinance of 1787 and the Constitution

The Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance were both written in the summer of 1787. The Bill of Rights to the Constitution was ratified in 1791. Excerpts from both documents appear below. Have the students do the following:

1. Identify similarities between the two documents and discuss why these similarities exist.

2. Discuss any civil liberties enjoyed by residents in the Northwest Territory in advance of the residents in the original states.

3. Identify features in the Northwest Ordinance that would have been most attractive to late- eighteenth-century immigrants.

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In 1790, approximately 100,000 white settlers lived beyond the Appalachian Mountains. By 1818, when Illinois gained admission to the Union, the population west of the Appalachians had climbed to two million. The growth of this region can in part be attributed to provisions in the Northwest Ordinance. Read from the Ordinance of 1787 selections such as Article 3, 5, and 6. Consider how each facilitated settlement of the western territory.

Have students decide how each article would influence migration. Have students consider economic opportunities, protections for civil liberties, and any other ideas they believe would lure migrants to the West. Based upon student conclusions, ask students to develop a project that explains how the factors influenced migration. Have students develop one of the following projects to demonstrate their conclusions:

• a speech
• a poster
• a pamphlet
• an editorial
• a cartoon

Article 6 generated controversy both upon its inception and application. The framers first debated whether an antislavery provision was appropriate for a federal territory. After 1787 they debated whether Article 6 should be applied to slaves who resided in the territory before or after adoption of the ordinance. Have students debate both sides of the issue.

Debate 1: Should an anti-slavery provision be written into the Northwest Ordinance?

The Confederation Congress wrote the Northwest Ordinance. Members of this Congress came from the original thirteen states. In 1787, the Southern economy was much more dependent on slavery than the Northern economy. Many Northern states adopted gradual plans to abolish slavery. For example, by 1787 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont had abolished slavery. Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey established gradual emancipation plans to abolish slavery between 1780 and 1804. Based on this information, have the students construct the arguments for and against the inclusion of an anti-slavery clause in the Northwest Ordinance. Next, have students stage a debate as Northern and Southern representatives to the Confederation Congress.

Debate 2: Did Article 6 usher in the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery?

Powerful arguments emerged in the application of Article 6. Scholars and judges such as Daniel Ryan, Carrington T. Marshall, Clarence Carter, and George Turner supported the immediate abolition argument. Leaders at the turn of the nineteenth century including Arthur St. Clair, Bartholmew Tardiveau, James Madison, and William Henry Harrison supported gradual emancipation. After reading the article, have students summarize the arguments of these eight individuals.

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