The Northwest Ordinance was enacted on 13 July 1787 to create the Northwest Territory in the lands northwest of the Ohio River. The territory was made up of the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
Even though the Northwest Ordinance included a prohibition on slavery in the new territory, that did not keep enslaved people from being brought to the territory. As seen below, Franklin County, Indiana set a tax on enslaved people in 1814.
The following tax rates were set at the August 1814 Term of the Franklin County, Indiana Circuit Court:
“Ordered that the tax on horses shall be for the year eighteen hundred & fourteen thirty seven & a half cents on each horse mare mule or ass.
Ordered that the tax on each freemail [sic] persons of colour between the age of twenty one years & fifty five years shall be three dollars for the year 1814.
Ordered that the tax on each slave or servent of colour above the age of twelve years shall be two dollars for the year 1814.
Ordered that the tax on Town lots shall be at the rates of fifty cents on every hunared [sic] dollars of those valuation.”
From: Franklin County, Indiana Common Pleas Court Minute Book C, 1813-1814, p. 129.