Northwest Ordinance (reenacted 1789)

What happened

The Ordinance of 1787 set up a government for the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Article 3 spoke to the Native nations living there. It said: "The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent."

The same article added a limit. Their property, rights and liberty were never to be invaded or disturbed "unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress." It also said that "laws founded in justice and humanity" should be made to prevent wrongs being done to them and to preserve peace and friendship.

Congress had to act again after the Constitution took effect. The Act of August 7, 1789 (1 Stat. 50) recites that the ordinance needed to be adapted "to the present Constitution of the United States," and then reproduces it. So the Article 3 language was carried into the first federal statute book, with "land" in the singular in that printing.

In practice, land passed out of Native hands through treaties. In the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, signed after a war, the tribes named in it agreed to "cede and relinquish forever, all their claims to the lands lying eastwardly and southwardly of the general boundary line." Whether consent in such settings was free is a question the treaty text cannot answer.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error