US History

U.S. History Study Guide

In 1775, in the midst of the American Revolution, Daniel Boone opened the “Wilderness Road” from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap and on to Kentucky for a company based out of Virginia called the Transylvania Company. By 1790, over one-hundred-thousand settlers had settled in Kentucky and Tennessee, despite the risk of violent death at the hands of Native Americans. This risk was made worse by the presence of the British in northwestern military posts which should have been evacuated at the end of the war. From these posts they supplied the Indians with guns and encouraged their use on Americans. The colonists always wanted to push further west and throughmen like Boone they were able to carve out new territory for the new nation. Many argued that it was not a great idea to move west quickly, with the dangers from the Native Americans, Spanish, and British which still lingered in the area. Another controversy would be raised in regards to who had claims in the area. Many colonies would claim the land from old colonial charters and many others claimed they had been sold in large plots of land prior to the French and Indian War. Although the United States moved west land disputes arose. The issue of slavery was another point of debate: should these new territories be allowed to have slavery and when should they be accepted into the Union if they should at all. Many of these controversies would be settled with Land Ordinances from 1784 to 1787. The Northwest Ordinance The settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee increased the pressure for the opening of the lands north of the Ohio River. To facilitate this, Congress passed three Land Ordinances in the years from 1784 to 1787. These ordinances were significa t because it established the example by which the United States would expand westward across North America. • The Land Ordinance of 1784 provided for territorial government and an orderly system by which each territory could progress to full statehood. The goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the territory west of the original colonies acquired at the end of the Revolutionary War since the Articles of Confederation could not levy taxes. • The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for the surveying and allotment of land into townships, of which one should be set aside for the support of education. (This ordinance is sometimes referred to as the “Northwest Ordinance of 1785.”) It established the basis for the Public Land Survey System in the United States. The ordinance was significant for establishing a system for funding public education. • The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided a bill of rights for settlers and forbade slavery north of the Ohio River. It provided for the creation of three to five territories which could be admitted as states to the union when they reached sufficient populations. The effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. It also sets the stage for the slave and Free State arguments which would last until the Civil War.

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