Land Ordinance of 1785
Land Ordinance of 1785
Building Context: In 1785, the United States Congress of the Confederation passed the Land Ordinance of 1785. The law established a system for surveying and selling undeveloped lands in the west, which provided crucial revenue to the government under the Articles of Confederation.
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| An ORDINANCE for ascertaining the Mode of disposing of LANDS in the WESTERN TERRITORY. BE IT ORDAINED BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, THAT the territory ceded by individual states to the United States, which has been purchased of the Indian inhabitants, shall be disposed of in the following manner.—- A surveyor from each state shall be appointed by Congress or a Committee of the States… | |
| The surveyors as they are respectively qualified shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south… The plats of the townships respectively, shall be marked by subdivision into lots of one mile square, or 640 acres, in the same direction as the external lines, and numbered from 1 to 36… | |
| As soon as five ranges of townships, and fractional parts of townships, in the direction from south to north, shall have been surveyed from time to time, the geographer shall transmit plats thereof to the board of treasury… The board of treasury shall transmit a copy of the original plats… to the commissioners of the loan-office of the several states, who, after giving notice of not less than two nor more than six months by causing advertisements to be posted up at the court houses, or other noted places in every county and to be inserted in one newspaper published in the states of their residence respectively, shall proceed to sell the townships or fractional parts, at public venue… | |
| There shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township… |
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