Living Law,
Living LandSupport land rights
All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Osage at St. Louis (1818)

The Osage ceded land along the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers; the United States agreed to pay up to $4,000 of settler claims.

Signed
September 25, 1818
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 2.0 million acres
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On September 25, 1818, William Clark, governor of Missouri Territory, signed a treaty at St. Louis with a deputation of "considerate men, chiefs, and warriors" of all the bands of the Great and Little Osage nation.

The treaty gives the reason in its first article. It says the Osage "have been embarrassed by the frequent demands for property taken from the citizens of the United States, by war parties, and other thoughtless men." Their chiefs had not been able to recover it. Under the 1808 treaty at Fort Clark, deductions from their annuities would leave them without any for several years, and they were "destitute of funds to do that justice."

To settle this, the Osage ceded a tract beginning on the Arkansas River at Frog Bayou, up the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers to the falls of the Verdigris, then east to the Osage boundary line twenty leagues north of the Arkansas. In Article 2 the United States agreed to pay its own citizens the proven value of property the Osage had stolen or destroyed since 1814, up to $4,000.

The Kansas Historical Society's Kansapedia says the 1818 treaty "was a response to Euro-American and eastern tribes' intrusions into Osage lands" and led to cessions used "to push the Cherokee farther west." It places the 1818 cession between the White, Arkansas and Neosho-Grand rivers.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 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 Osage nations have been embarrassed by the frequent demands for property taken from the citizens of the United StatesTreaty with the Osage, 1818 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  2. being destitute of funds to do that justice to the citizens of the United StatesTreaty with the Osage, 1818 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  3. provided the same does not exceed the sum of four thousand dollarsTreaty with the Osage, 1818 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  4. The treaty of 1818 was a response to Euro-American and eastern tribes’ intrusions into Osage lands.Osage Treaties with the United States (Kansapedia, Kansas Historical Society)

Research notes. The treaty ties the cession to claims against the Osage and an annuity deduction, which can be read as debt-driven; the sources cited do not say so in those words. Kansapedia describes the 1818 area more broadly than the treaty's bounds; the treaty text bounds were used for the description. No acreage is stated.

What the treaty did to the land

About 2.0 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-osage-1818-0167reference work
    Sept. 25, 1818. | 7 Stat., 183. / scan: TREATY WITH THE OS.AGE, 1818. 167

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