Land Ordinance for Northwest Territory

On May 20, 1785, the Confederation Congress adopted the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey and sell western lands north of the Ohio River. The ordinance created the rectangular township system, with six-mile townships divided into thirty-six sections, and reserved Section 16 for public schools. Congress used the measure to turn the trans-Appalachian West into an ordered source of revenue under the Articles of Confederation.

The ordinance answered an economic and political problem left by the Revolution: Congress needed income and orderly settlement rules, but it also needed to prevent western land claims from dissolving the Union. By imposing a uniform survey before sale, the Confederation Congress asserted federal control over territory that individual settlers and land companies wanted to occupy more chaotically. The law therefore linked national finance, public education, and territorial administration in a way the Articles had rarely achieved elsewhere.

The 1785 ordinance prepared the ground for the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created the territorial government and statehood process for the same region. Its township survey system also became the basic framework for federal land policy across much of the American interior.