The long-term British goals were to maintain friendly relations with the Indians, support the valuable fur trade based in Montreal, and prevent low-grade warfare between the Indian tribes and the American settlers.[9] The Confederation Congress of the United States organized the entire region north of the Ohio into the Northwest Territory in 1787, with a mechanism to create new states once an area had gained sufficient population. Two years earlier, Congress had passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which provided a means for the rapid surveying and sale of public lands in the region, thus encouraging organized settlement.