Nathaniel Deutsch debunked a book claiming that this historical political territory was annually traversed in a triangular migration by a “tri-racial” group partly composed of Fulani pastoralists, the Ben-Ishmael tribe. This territory was seen as a testing ground for “ward republics” by a man who wanted to divide it into areas like Assenisipia and Metropotamia. Zane’s Trace cut through this territory, where the “French 500” arrived to settle Gallipolis after William Duer sold them worthless deeds. A (*) university named for this territory created the title Dean of Women for the “do everything” activist Frances Willard. This territory was established by the successor to an act that created a survey system based on 6-mile-wide grids called townships. For 10 points, the formation of states in what territory was governed by a namesake act passed after Thomas Jefferson’s Land Ordinance? ■END■
ANSWER: Northwest Territory [or Old Northwest; accept Northwest Ordinance or Northwestern University; prompt on Ohio Lands or Indiana Territory by asking “what territory was that part of during the events clued?”; reject “Northwest Territories”] (The Ishmael family was cast as an Islamic “Fugitive ‘Nation’ of the Old Northwest” in a book by Hugo Prosper Leaming.)
<JB, American History>
= Average correct buzz position