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... Hello, and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

This week, episode 344, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The last few weeks we've talked about some of the economic

crises that states faced in the years following the end of the war. The big hope to end

of these financial problems was wrapped up in selling Western lands to raise money. This made

opening up the lands that came to be known as the Northwest

Territory, a critical event. This week, we're going to take a look at the final major legal step

needed to make that happen, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Now, that land today makes up the states of

Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. For people at the time,

this was the land that was northwest of the Ohio River, reaching as far west as the Mississippi River,

and as far north as the border with British Canada. The Continental Congress's first two

legislative efforts to establish a legal framework for this territory

came in the form of the land ordinances of 1784 and 1785, which we discussed in

episodes 334 and 336. The first step in this process was for Congress to get the various

states to give up their personal claims to the land.

...