Northwest Territory

Formerly Old Northwest.

A historical region of the north-central United States extending from the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the Great Lakes. The area was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. It was officially designated a territory in 1787 and later split up into the territories and present-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. Control over the territory was a major issue in the War of 1812.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Northwest Territory

(Placename) See Old Northwest

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

North′west Ter′ritory

the region north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, organized by Congress in 1787, comprising present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the E part of Minnesota.

References in classic literature ?

On the second night, fifty more miles to the good, they camped in the vicinity of the boundary between Alaska and the Northwest Territory. The rest of the journey, save the last short stretch to Dyea, would be travelled on Canadian territory.

View in context

This volume follows Harriet Scott from 1835, when she was a slave girl taken to the Northwest Territory, to 1857, when her family experienced momentary fame after defeat in the U.S.