The Treaties of Portage des Sioux were a series of treaties at Portage des Sioux, Missouri in 1815 that officially were supposed to mark the end of conflicts between the United States and Native Americans at the conclusion of the War of 1812.
Although the treaties were ostensibly to "restore to such Tribes or Nations respectively all the possessions, rights, and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in 1811" which was required in Article IX of the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war, [1] they were to be used to affirm and consolidate earlier treaties in which the United States had secured vast territory of the Midwest from tribes in agreements that had earlier not been signed by all the appropriate Native American representatives.
The earlier treaties included the Treaty of St. Louis (1804) in which the Sac and Fox ceded a swath of land from Missouri through Illinois and Wisconsin and the Treaty of Fort Clark in 1808 in which the Osage Nation ceded Missouri and Arkansas east of Fort Clark.
The treaties were to form the legal basis in which tribes were to be relocated west of Missouri in Indian Territory and which was to clear the way for the states to enter the Union.
On March 11, 1815, President James Madison appointed William Clark (governor of Missouri Territory), Ninian Edwards (governor of Illinois Territory), and Auguste Chouteau (a St. Louis businessman who had made his fortune dealing in the fur trade with the Native Americans) to the commission to conclude the treaty. The President authorized an expenditure of $20,000 for gifts for the chiefs. The commissioners met in St. Louis, Missouri on May 11, 1815 to make the arrangements and extend 37 invitations to the Chiefs.
The treaty signings at Portage des Sioux were to occur between July 18 and September 16.
The most notable chief to refuse the invitation was Black Hawk who was compelled to come and was the last to sign the treaty. He was to resist its terms in the Black Hawk War.
The tribes signing (in order of signatures):
Other tribes were to sign the treaties in St. Louis.
The Sauk or Sac are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group, who lived primarily in the region of what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin, when first encountered by the French in 1667. Their autonym is oθaakiiwaki, and their exonym is Ozaagii(-wag) in Ojibwe. The latter name was transliterated into French and English by colonists of those cultures. Today they have three federally recognized tribes, together with the Meskwaki (Fox), located in Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign independent state. The tribes ceded land they occupied in exchange for land grants in 1803. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
Portage Des Sioux is a city in St. Charles County, Missouri, United States. The town sits on the Mississippi River roughly opposite Elsah, Illinois, and is the home of the riverside shrine of Our Lady of the Rivers. The population was 328 at the 2010 census. The city was founded in 1799 by Spanish Lt. Gov. Zenon Trudeau and François Saucier in reaction to American plans to build a military post about twelve miles (19 km) downstream. The French name derives from the overland escape route between the Missouri River and Mississippi River used by a band of Sioux, fleeing enemies; they used this area as a portage for their canoes, outdistancing their rivals who instead paddled all of the way to the confluence of the rivers.
Manuel Lisa, also known as Manuel de Lisa, was a Spanish citizen and later, became an American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, became a land owner, merchant, fur trader, United States Indian agent, and explorer. Lisa was among the founders, in St. Louis, of the Missouri Fur Company, an early fur trading company. Manuel Lisa gained respect through his trading among Native American tribes of the upper Missouri River region, such as the Teton Sioux, Omaha and Ponca.
Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in 1839 between Iowa Territory and Missouri over their border.
René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr., also known as Auguste Chouteau, was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a monopoly for many years of fur trade with the large Osage tribe on the Missouri River. In addition, he had numerous business interests in St. Louis and was well-connected with the various rulers: French, Spanish and American.
Fort Osage was an early 19th-century factory trading post run by the United States Government in western Missouri on the American frontier; it was located in present-day Sibley, Missouri. The Treaty of Fort Clark, signed with certain members of the Osage Nation in 1808, called for the United States to establish Fort Osage as a trading post and to protect the Osage from tribal enemies.
John C. Sullivan was a surveyor who established the Indian Boundary Line and the Sullivan Line which were to form the boundary between Native Americans and white settlers in Indian Territory from Iowa to Texas.
The Treaty of Fort Clark was signed at Fort Osage on November 10, 1808, in which the Osage Nation ceded all the land east of the fort in Missouri and Arkansas north of the Arkansas River to the United States. The Fort Clark treaty and the Treaty of St. Louis in which the Sac (tribe) and Fox (tribe) ceded northeastern Missouri along with northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin were the first two major treaties in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The affected tribes, upset with the terms, were to side with the British in the War of 1812. Following the settlement of that war, John C. Sullivan for the United States was to survey the ceded land in 1816 (adjusting it 23 miles westward to the mouth of the Kansas River to create the Indian Boundary Line west of which and south of which virtually all tribes were to be removed in the Indian Removal Act in 1830.
The Sullivan Line originally marked in 1816 forms three quarters of the border between Missouri and Iowa and an extension of it forms the remainder. The line was initially created to establish the limits of Native American territory ; disputes over the boundary were to erupt into the Honey War.
Antoine Le Claire was a US Army interpreter, landowner in Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, Illinois, businessman, philanthropist and principal founder of Davenport, Iowa.
A Half-Breed Tract was a segment of land designated in the western states by the United States government in the 19th century specifically for Métis of American Indian and European or European-American ancestry, at the time commonly known as half-breeds. The government set aside such tracts in several parts of the Midwestern prairie region, including in Iowa Territory, Nebraska Territory, Kansas Territory, Minnesota Territory, and Wisconsin Territory.
Native American tribes in the U.S. state of Nebraska have been Plains Indians, descendants of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples who have occupied the area for thousands of years. More than 15 historic tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries.
Wabasha II, also known as Wapahasha, Wapasha, or "The Leaf," succeeded his father as head chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota tribe in the early 1800s. He led the Dakota forces fighting with the British in the War of 1812, but sided with the United States in the Black Hawk War of 1832. Chief Wabasha II signed the Treaties of Prairie du Chien in 1825 and 1830.
The Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska is one of three federally recognized Native American tribes of Sac and Meskwaki (Fox) peoples. Their name for themselves is Nemahahaki and they are an Algonquian people and Eastern Woodland culture.
The fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien was negotiated between the United States and the Sac and Fox, the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute and Sisseton Sioux, Omaha, Ioway, Otoe and Missouria tribes. The treaty was signed on July 15, 1830, with William Clark and Willoughby Morgan representing the United States. Through additional negotiations conducted in St. Louis on October 13, 1830, Yankton Sioux and Santee Sioux agreed to abide by the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien. The US government announced the treaty and its numerous adherents on February 24, 1831.
The Treaty of St. Louis is the name of a series of treaties signed between the United States and various Native American tribes from 1804 through 1824. The fourteen treaties were all signed in the St. Louis, Missouri area.
The Treaty of St. Louis is the name of a series of treaties signed between the United States and various Native American tribes from 1804 through 1824. The fourteen treaties were all signed in the St. Louis, Missouri area.
The Treaty of St. Louis is the name of a series of treaties signed between the United States and various Native American tribes from 1804 through 1824. The fourteen treaties were all signed in the St. Louis, Missouri area.