Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance on July 13, 1787, organizing the first U.S. territory.
The law created the Northwest Territory, a vast region north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. It established a process by which territories could develop governments and eventually enter the Union as states on an equal footing with the original states.
The ordinance set a population threshold for statehood and protected several civil liberties, including religious freedom and trial by jury. It also prohibited slavery in the territory, making the law an important early federal restriction on slavery’s expansion.
The Northwest Ordinance was passed under the Articles of Confederation, before the Constitution took effect. The territory eventually produced the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. It is sometimes confused with the Land Ordinance of 1785, which established a system for surveying and selling western lands but did not create the territorial government.