1785
LegislationBook sources
Land Ordinance creates a survey-and-sale framework
Northwest territory; Indigenous nations
The federal survey system made land a commodity for sale and settlement. Its expansion depended on acquiring or appropriating territory that Indigenous peoples continued to inhabit and govern.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The law was a land-distribution framework; particular takings require their own treaty or military history.
Sources
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014), chapter 7