The Northwest Ordinance, 1787

Before the ink had dried on the U.S. Constitution, representatives of the thirteen colonies tried to figure out how new states might be added to their union. The result of their deliberations was the Ordinance of 1787, or the Northwest Ordinance, adopted July 13, 1787, by the Second Continental Congress.

The Northwest Ordinance specified four principal things. First, it authorized a provisional government for the vast territory northwest of the Ohio River that the United States had obtained at the end of the Revolutionary War. Second, it provided a method for making new governments out of that territory (the rules under... more...

Original Documents and Other Primary Sources

	The surveyor that laid out Madison recalls his days in the field in 1837.
	A Wisconsin surveyor describes running lines in the 1830's.
	How the Ordinance of 1787 was drafted, by one of its authors.
	The English map America just before the Revolution (1776).
	States and territories created under the Northwest Ordinance.
	The rectangular survey gets underway in Wisconsin, 1835.

Primary Sources Available Elsewhere

	A historical, documentary, and descriptive history of Wisconsin to 1854
	Collected historical documents from the Wisconsin Historical Society
	U.S. General Land Office surveyors' field notes and plats for Wisconsin
	The full text of the Northwest Ordinance.

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