The Northwest Ordinance

“A fascinating tale of political intrigue, land speculation, and sectional haggling”—Jon Kukla, A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America; “an engrossing narrative showing the theft of Native Americans’ land and African Americans’ labor were inextricably linked”—Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution; “Robert Alexander’s book provides an amazing amount of historical detail about the early founding of the United States, with an envisioned destiny of westward expansion. The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the main template for that expansion, quite skillfully professed the ‘utmost good faith towards the Indians,’ with a full protection of their property, rights, and liberty. Yet, as Alexander’s work demonstrates, the vision of those who founded the United States was an unabated imperial advancement across the continent by pushing aside and dispossessing those First Nations. Alexander’s work provides deep insight into this history and its continuing impact on Original Nations in our time.”—Steven Newcomb, Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.   


Passed by Congress in July 1787, the Northwest Ordinance laid out the basic form of government for all U.S. territory north of the Ohio River. That summer, the Constitutional Convention drafted the defining document of the American Republic as a whole. A bargain struck between Congress and the Convention outlawed slavery north of the Ohio, but gave Southern states a Congressional and Electoral College representation based on population figures that included slaves--each valued at three-fifths of a free white citizen. 

Because of this agreement, the western lands acquired from Great Britain after the Revolutionary War were divided into slave and free states--a compromise which, when it failed, precipitated the Civil War 74 years later. For years most historians denied that this political deal took place. Drawing on contemporary letters and documents, this detailed analysis re-examines the Ordinance and how Congress silently permitted the South's "peculiar institution" to move westward.