Methods
How the atlas is built, what it can and cannot tell you, and how to check it.
A ledger, not a verdict
Every treaty, agreement, statute and executive order is a record with its own dates, parties and sources. Maps and connections are drawn from those records. Where the site describes what happened, it uses the record’s own terms and names the legal mechanism (a cession, an abrogation by statute, a diminishment, a termination) rather than a single word for all of them.
Where the data comes from
- Treaty records from the National Archives Ratified Indian Treaties series, with Statutes at Large and Kappler citations.
- Cession shapes from the US Forest Service’s georeferenced version of C. C. Royce, Indian Land Cessions in the United States (1899).
- Present-day governments from the Bureau of Indian Affairs list (91 FR 4102, January 30, 2026), state recognition records, and the nations’ own websites.
- Court cases, statutes, violations and land returns from primary sources and reference works, each cited on its page.
Links between records
Some links are stated in the records (a treaty names its parties). Others were suggested by matching names or dates, for example a Royce cession dated the same day as a treaty with a shared nation. Suggested links are shown, and labeled, until a person reviews them.