For much of the last century, Charles J. Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties [1] has served as the primary resource for the final texts of treaties made between American Indian tribes and the United States government. In that collation, Kappler included, along with other important materials, 366 of the 375 instruments recognized by the Department of State [2]. Clause 2 of Article VI of the Constitution declares that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." These documents, therefore, are legally binding dialogues between these sovereigns.

The Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center has digitized all of Kappler's volumes [3], but it is especially useful that the second volume on treaties [4] has been converted, because this now affords easy access to those texts fashioned between 1778 and 1868.

In the present collection, the texts of the nine remaining treaties, created between the years 1722 and 1805, are offered. These are the product of seven, early treaty events between a number of American Indian Nations and the British, and of two United States efforts. This subset has been formed for three reasons:

  • First, Kappler used for his volume the final text versions that appeared in the Statutes at Large. As a result of this approach, the first seven recognized treaties that were consummated with the British — during the years 1722 to 1768 — were not part of the Statutes and so were not recorded in Kappler's volume. The Department of State denotes these early negotiations as ratified treaty number 1 through 7.
  • Second, as an additional difficulty, the final texts of two other acknowledged treaties, from 1798 and 1805, were never published in the Statutes at Large, but rather are found in the first volume of American State Papers: Indian Affairs [5]. These are identified by the Department of State as ratified treaty number 28 and 44.
  • Third, when combined with those 366 documents already available at the Oklahoma State University web site, these last nine instruments now assure access to all federally recognized treaties with the tribes.
The Nine Treaty Titles

Ratified treaty # 1: The Great Treaty of 1722 Between the Five Nations, the Mahicans, and the Colonies of New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. [6]

Ratified treaty # 2: Deed in Trust from Three of the Five Nations of Indians to the King, 1726. [7]

Ratified treaty # 3: A Treaty Held at the Town of Lancaster, By the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of the Province, and the Honourable the Commissioners for the Province of Virginia and Maryland, with the Indians of the Six Nations in June, 1744. [8]

Ratified treaty # 4: Treaty of Logstown, 1752. [9]

Ratified treaty # 5: The Albany Congress, and Treaty of 1754. [10]

Ratified treaty # 6: At a Conference Held By The Honourable Brigadier General Moncton with the Western Nations of Indians, at the Camp before Pittsburgh, 12th Day of August 1760. [11]

Ratified treaty # 7: Treaty of Fort Stanwix, or The Grant from the Six Nations to the King and Agreement of Boundary Line — Six Nations, Shawnee, Delaware, Mingoes of Ohio, 1768. [12]

Ratified treaty # 28: Convention Between the State of New York and the Oneida Indians, June 1, 1798. [13]

Ratified treaty # 44: A Treaty Between the United States of America and the sachems, chiefs, and warriors, of the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee, and Delaware, Shawnee, and Pattawatamy nations, holden at fort Industry, on the Miami of the lake, on the 4th day of July, A.D. one thousand eight hundred and five. [14]

1. Kappler, C. J. (1904–1941). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vols. 1–5. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. [back]

2. Ratified Indian Treaties, 1722–1869. (1966). Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Service. [back]

3. The entire suite consists of Kappler’s five original volumes, and two additional ones published in 1979 by the Department of the Interior in response to the passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. [back]

4. Kappler, C. J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. 2: Treaties. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. [back]

5. American State Papers: Indian Affairs, vol. 1 (1832). Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton. Kappler did include one recognized treaty that appeared only in American State Papers: Indian Affairs. Ratified treaty number 19 — the Agreement with the Five Nations of Indians, 1792 — appears on page 1027 of the Appendix in Kappler's second volume, as well as on page 232 of the first volume of American State Papers: Indian Affairs. The Oklahoma State University link for this document is at http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/fiv1027.htm. [back]

6. O'Callaghan, E. B. (Ed.). (1855). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 5. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 657–681. [back]

7. O'Callaghan, E. B. (Ed.). (1855). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 5. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 800–801. [back]

8. Van Doren, C. and Boyd, J. P. (Eds.). (1938). Indian Treaties Printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1736–1762. Philadelphia, PA: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 41–79. [back]

9. The Treaty of Logg's Town, 1752. (1906). Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 13, 154–174. [back]

10. O'Callaghan, E. B. (Ed.). (1855). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 6. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 853–892. [back]

11. Hazard, S. (Ed.). (1852). Pennsylvania Archives (1st Series), vol. 3. Philadelphia, PA: Joseph Severns, 744–751. [back]

12. O'Callaghan, E. B. (Ed.). (1857). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 8. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 111–137. [back]

13. American State Papers: Indian Affairs, vol. 1 (1832). Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 641. [back]

14. American State Papers: Indian Affairs, vol. 1 (1832). Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 696. [back]

Project Team

Published by University of Nebraska Libraries–Electronic Text Center
Lincoln, Nebraska