Land area
Land of the Cherokee in Kansas, ceded 1866 (area 490)
- 1835
Set aside as a reservation
- 1866
Ceded to the United States
- 1868
Earlier terms confirmed
In the record
The Cherokee Neutral Land in Kansas: granted to the Cherokee in the 1835 New Echota treaty, given up in 1866 to be sold on their behalf, with an 1868 treaty reaffirming its sale to James F. Joy. The area covers about 778 thousand acres in what is now Kansas.
The 1899 record names Cherokee as the people of this land.
How it was taken: a treaty or agreement. The treaty text records an agreement with Cherokee delegates after the war; the preamble calls existing treaties "insufficient" and no coercion is stated.
Today, Cherokee Nation, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians carry the history of the people named here.
Written from the records linked here; open any of them for its sources.
Shapes come from C. C. Royce’s 1899 maps as georeferenced by the US Forest Service. They are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land. Royce recorded land the United States treated as ceded; the shape does not show a nation’s territory.
Who is doing the work
This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:
Native legal and land defense, nationally
- Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Native-led Litigation and legal advocacy for tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, land and resources Give on their site Website
- NDN Collective (LANDBACK Campaign) Native-led LANDBACK campaign (launched 2020; Mount Rushmore closure and return of Black Hills public lands), Indigenous… Give on their site Website
- Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) Native-led Land recovery and control by tribes and individual Indian landowners Website
- Decolonizing Wealth Project (Indigenous Earth Fund; California Tribal Land Return) Native-led Reparative philanthropy Give on their site Website
Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.
Connections
Links marked “suggested” were matched automatically by name or date and have not yet been reviewed by a person.
Agreements recorded for this land 3
- Treaty of New Echota with the Cherokee, 18351835suggested
- Reconstruction Treaty with the Cherokee, 18661866suggested
- Cherokee at Washington, DC (1868)1868suggested
Nations named for this land 2
- Cherokeeas named in the 1899 recordsuggested
- United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indiansmatched by the Forest Service, under reviewsuggested
Located in 1
Sources
- Royce, Indian Land Cessions (1899), Schedule entry dated 1835-12-29primary record
- Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, text for 1835-12-29primary record
- Royce, Indian Land Cessions (1899), Schedule entry dated 1866-07-19primary record
- Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, text for 1866-07-19primary record
- Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, text for 1868-04-27primary record
- Royce’s map sheet: Kansas 2 (Library of Congress)primary record
- USDA Forest Service, Tribal Lands Ceded to the United States (digitized Royce maps)reference work
The record’s fields
- Area number in the 1899 record
- 490
- Dates in the 1899 record
- 1835-12-29; 1866-07-19; 1868-04-27
- Kind of instrument
- Treaty or agreement
- Peoples as named in the 1899 record
- Cherokee
- States
- KS
- Counties
- Cherokee; Crawford
- Map sheets in the 1899 record
- Kansas 2
- Geometry
- Approximate shape from Royce’s 1899 maps
Research notes
geometry_role is 'cession' for every USFS feature: no field in the source distinguishes cessions from reservations.
- Kind
- Land area
- Confidence
- Medium