American Indian Treaties

American Indian affairs are much in the public mind today—hotly contested debates over such issues as Indian fishing rights, land claims, and reservation gambling hold our attention. While the unique legal status of American Indians rests on the historical treaty relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government, until now there has been no comprehensive history of these treaties and their role in American life.

Francis Paul Prucha, a leading authority on the history of American Indian affairs, argues that the treaties were a political anomaly from the very beginning. The term "treaty" implies a contract between sovereign independent nations, yet Indians were always in a position of inequality and dependence as negotiators, a fact that complicates their current attempts to regain their rights and tribal sovereignty.

Prucha's impeccably researched book, based on a close analysis of every treaty, makes possible a thorough understanding of a legal dilemma whose legacy is so palpably felt today.

Francis Paul Prucha, S.J. (1921-2015) was Professor Emeritus of History at Marquette University. Among his many books is The Indians in American Society: From the Revolutionary War to the Present.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN FOOTNOTES
INTRODUCTION:
THE ANOMALY OF INDIAN TREATIES

PART ONE. A TREATY SYSTEM
1
The Revolutionary War Years
2
Treaties of Peace after the Revolution
3
Treaty-Making Procedures under the Constitution
4
Confirming the Procedures: Other Treaties in the 1790s

PART TWO.
INSTRUMENTS OF FEDERAL POLICY
5
Testing the Treaty System: 1800 to the War of 1812
6
A Position of Dominance: The War of 1812 and After
7
Indian Removal and the Debate about Treaty Making
8
The Removal Period in the North
9
Patterns in Treaty Making
10
Treaties in the Expanding West
11
The Civil War Decade

PART THREE. DETERIORATION
12
The End of Treaty Making
13
Treaty Substitutes
14
The Collapse of the Treaty System

PART FOUR. RENEWAL:
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
15
Treaties in the New Century
16
Treaties before the Supreme Court
17
Treaty-Rights Activism

APPENDIX A. TREATY DOCUMENTS
AND THEIR PROMULGATION
APPENDIX B.
RATIFIED INDIAN TREATIES
APPENDIX C. RATIFIED AGREEMENTS
WITH INDIAN TRIBES, 1872-1911
APPENDIX D. UNRATIFIED TREATIES
SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF
AMERICAN INDIAN TREATIES
INDEX
PICTURE CREDITS