Fiat Objects

When, in 1784, the land surveyor Thomas Jefferson called into being the states of the so-called Northwest Ordinance by drawing lines on a map, his map was sufficiently inaccurate that it did not even have the Great Lakes in the right places. Ten states would nonetheless eventually be created in the area of Jefferson’s map, having boundaries which in large degree follow his original lines. These draw off 14 neat checkerboard squares between the boundaries of the Atlantic colonies and the Mississippi River. As a result of the Northwest Ordinance, which was adopted by Congress in 1785, the land became first of all a Territory of the United States, and the law called for this Territory to be partitioned into mile-square units called sections to be sold at auction at a starting price of $1 per acre.