1787

Northwest Ordinance and territorial incorporation

Northwest territory; Indigenous nations and enslaved people

The ordinance organized territorial government while promising good faith toward Native peoples and prohibiting slavery in the territory subject to a fugitive provision. Expansion and later violations undercut its protective promises.

Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.

Context / qualification

Mixed provisions: do not describe the entire instrument as a simple racial exclusion statute.

Sources

• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014), chapter 7

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