American Indian Treaties Portal

Early recognized treaties with American Indian nations

The Oklahoma State University Library’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties Internet site was developed to provide a digital collection of the final texts of 366 of the 375 American Indian treaties recognized by the United States Department of State.  The remaining nine documents are provided in this compilation, to complement the Oklahoma State resource.

You say cranberry and I say cramberry, let's call the whole thing off: A lexicon of the recognized American Indian treaties

Two lexicon corpora of 375 acknowledged American Indian treaties — one made from those transactions created with the federal government (N = 368), and another from those documents formed during the earlier British occupation (N = 7) — were generated with TokenX, a text visualization and analysis tool.  Resulting frequency tables for these families of instruments are included, along with commentary on these laws of the land.

Charles J. Kappler — A life beyond Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties

Charles J. Kappler (1868–1946) is known primarily for his compilation Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties.  His contributions as an employee of the federal government, his role as an attorney specializing in federal Indian law, and his influence on the development of this jurisprudence also warrant recognition.  These and other aspects of his life are presented to demonstrate the wide range of his accomplishments.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851: Revisiting the document found in Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties

Fort LaramieThe Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851 was an important transaction formed by the federal government with a number of prominent American Indian tribes of the Great Plains. Its creation and provisions were a demonstration of the growing need for less animosity among the tribes themselves, in part to yield increased security for an ever-growing flow of settlers into the western United States who traversed in the process the tribes' historical lands. However, over the years, a true version of the final transaction — reflecting intervention by the Senate after the original signing — has never been published. A proposed correct text is presented here.

As long as grass shall grow and water run: The treaties formed by the Confederate States of America and the tribes in Indian Territory, 1861

During the summer and fall of 1861, the Confederate States of America created a series of treaties with the tribes in Indian Territory. These transactions were recorded in The Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America as the law of the land, just as similar federal transactions appeared in the U.S. Statutes. The texts of those nine instruments – and their Statutes page images – are provided here.

I forbid: Presidential vetoes and America Indian affairs, 1789-2000

Between the years 1789 and 2000, nineteen United States Presidents vetoed 114 bills or resolutions that were related to American Indian affairs. These executive actions are identified here, and supporting Congressional documents for each transaction are included. A brief history of Presidential veto power and activities is presented.

"In order to organize the Government of the Indian Territory. . .": Comparing variants of the 1870 Okmulgee Constitution

The Five Civilized and other tribes within the Indian Territory initiated a series of council meetings in 1870 to deal with new federal stipulations and treaties following the Civil War. The so-called Okmulgee Constitution was created to provide a model for a full-fledged Indian state to replace the Territory. Fourteen variants of that document and of a revised rendition were examined in this study, in terms of their variability as quantified by Levenshtein's edit distance algorithm.

Insights from editions of The Annual Register regarding later variants of the Royal Proclamation of 1763: An application of Levenshtein’s edit distance metric

King George III's Royal Proclamation of 1763 provided an operational definition of "Indian country" in North America and set guidelines for the administration of, and inherent sovereignty within, those tribal lands. The effects of these declarations shaped the evolution of Indian affairs in both Canada and the United States; their influence has endured to this day. The texts of variants of that pronouncement – among editions of The Annual Register and related publications – are analyzed with Levenshtein's edit distance algorithm.

The quantification of a forced convergence of similar texts: The 1870 and the 1875 Okmulgee Constitution and Levenshtein’s edit distance metric

The Okmulgee Constitution, created in the Creek capital of the Indian Territory in December 1870, provided a model for a new full-fledged and federally supported Indian state to replace the Territory. In a previous study, the variants of that document's text from the official and unofficial record were examined through the application of Levenshtein's edit distance algorithm. This analysis considers the similarity of the 1870 Constitution and a revision from 1875 through a series of forced convergence maneuvers that more closely aligned the texts of these two already highly correlated instruments. The Levenshtein procedure was employed to quantify this integration.

 

American Indian treaties before the courts

These links provide access to journal publications on court cases in various jurisdictions that have cited one or more of the 375 recognized American Indian treaties.  The list of uncited treaties has diminished since the first two articles were produced.  This change is noted in later federal ensembles: