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All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Choctaw at Choctaw Trading House (1816)

In 1816 the Choctaw ceded land east of a Tombigbee River line for $6,000 a year for twenty years and $10,000 in merchandise.

Signed
October 24, 1816
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 3.0 million acres
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On October 24, 1816, John Coffee, John Rhea and John McKee, commissioners for President James Madison, signed a "treaty of cession" at the Choctaw trading house. The other side was the mingoes, leaders, captains and warriors of the Choctaw nation, "in general council assembled, in behalf of themselves and the whole nation."

Article 1 has the Choctaw cede "all their title and claim to lands lying east of the following boundary." The line begins at the mouth of Ooktibbuha on the Chickasaw boundary and runs down the Tombigbee River until it meets the northern boundary of the cession the Choctaw made at Mount Dexter on November 16, 1805.

In Article 2 the United States agreed to pay the Choctaw nation $6,000 a year for twenty years. It also agreed to deliver $10,000 in merchandise on signing.

The treaty has only two articles. The cession joined a line from the earlier 1805 cession, so the 1816 land was added to territory the Choctaw had already given up. The text does not describe the negotiation or say what the land became. It gives no acreage and describes the location only by rivers and the earlier treaty line.

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. cede to the United States all their title and claim to lands lying east of the following boundaryTreaty with the Choctaw, 1816 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  2. the sum of six thousand dollars annually, for twenty yearsTreaty with the Choctaw, 1816 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  3. Mount Dexter, on the 16th November, 1805Treaty with the Choctaw, 1816 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)

Research notes. This summary rests on the treaty text alone. No acreage is stated and the location is described only by river and treaty boundaries. The text does not name the states where the land lies.

What the treaty did to the land

About 3.0 million 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.

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-choctaw-1816-0137reference work
    Oct. 24, 1816. | 7 Stat., 152. / scan: 137

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