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Treaty

Kickapoo at Vincennes, Indiana Territory (1809)

The Kickapoo agreed to the 1809 Fort Wayne cession and ceded a further Wabash strip for added annuities and goods.

Signed
December 9, 1809
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 70,000 acres
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On December 9, 1809, William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory, signed a treaty at Vincennes with the sachems and war chiefs of the Kickapoo. It finished the sequence that began with the Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809. In that treaty the Miami, Eel River, Delaware and Potawatomi had offered to cede land on the northwest side of the Wabash "to show their attachment to their brothers the kickapoos." The offer came with a $400 annuity and had "no effect unless the kickapoos will agree to it."

In Article 1 the Kickapoo agreed. The text says the cession in the ninth article of the Fort Wayne treaty "is hereby agreed to by the Kickapoos," with a permanent added annuity of $400 and goods worth $800 as "full compensation."

In Article 2 the Kickapoo ceded a further tract between that land, the Wabash, the Vermilion River, and a line meeting the Vermilion twenty miles from its mouth. The text gives a further annuity of $100 and $700 in goods as full compensation. If the Miami did not approve this second cession, and the United States chose not to take the land without their consent, the United States would be released from paying the $100.

Article 3 applied the Greenville treaty's rules for paying annuities and the right to hunt on the land. The OSU record shows the treaty was ratified on March 5, 1810. The sources here give no acreage and do not describe the council.

Summarized with AI assistance from 3 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error

What the sources say, and how this was checked

Well supported by the sources below.

  1. the cession it containes is hereby agreed to by the KickapoosTreaty with the Kickapoo, 1809 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  2. The said tribe further agrees to cede to the United States all that tract of landTreaty with the Kickapoo, 1809 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  3. But this article is to have no effect unless the Kickapoos will agree to it.Treaty with the Delawares, etc., 1809 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)

Research notes. This summary rests on the treaty texts alone. No cited source addresses how the Kickapoo reached their decision or their own account of it. No acreage is stated.

What the treaty did to the land

About 70,000 acres given up. Each shape is a numbered area in the federal government’s 1899 record of land cessions.

What happened next

Everything the record holds about this land and this treaty, in order: what earlier agreements said, what this one did, and what the United States, the courts and the nations did afterwards.

  1. 1809

    Land lost

    About 378,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Delaware, Eel River Miami and others

    By Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809), Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River

    area 73

  2. 1809

    This treaty

    Earlier terms confirmed for the land of the Delaware, Eel River Miami and others. About 70,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Kickapoo and Wea

    The Kickapoo agreed to the 1809 Fort Wayne cession and ceded a further Wabash strip for added annuities and goods.

  3. 1816

    Land record

    Earlier terms confirmed for the land of the Delaware, Eel River Miami and others

    By Wea and Kickapoo at Fort Harrison, Indiana Territory (1816)

    area 73 area 74

  4. 1818

    Land record

    Earlier terms confirmed for the land of the Kickapoo and Wea

    By Wea at St. Mary's, Ohio (1818)

    area 74

Who is doing the work today

The nations connected to this treaty come first, then groups returning land and defending treaty rights. Support goes directly to them.

This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:

Native legal and land defense, nationally

Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.

Sources

  1. treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-kickapoo-1809-0104reference work
    Dec. 9, 1809. | 7 Stat., 117. / scan: 104

Shapes are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land, title or jurisdiction.