Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834

What happened

On June 30, 1834, Congress passed "An Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers." It was the latest in a series of such laws, and it is the version whose land rule survives in the U.S. Code.

Section 1 defined where the law applied. It declared the Indian country to be the part of the United States west of the Mississippi, outside Missouri, Louisiana and the Arkansas Territory, and the part east of the Mississippi not within any state to which the Indian title had not been extinguished. Section 2 barred trade with Indians in the Indian country without a license from a superintendent of Indian affairs or an agent.

Section 12 is the land rule. It said that no purchase, grant, lease "or other conveyance of lands, or of any title or claim thereto, from any Indian nation or tribe of Indians, shall be of any validity in law or equity, unless the same be made by treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the constitution." A private person who tried to negotiate such a purchase without federal authority would forfeit one thousand dollars.

That sentence is now 25 U.S.C. 177. Its wording is nearly the same: "No purchase, grant, lease, or other conveyance of lands, or of any title or claim thereto, from any Indian nation or tribe of Indians, shall be of any validity in law or equity, unless the same be made by treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the Constitution." The statute still sets the penalty for unauthorized negotiators at $1,000.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error