Kansa at St. Louis (1825)
In 1825 the Kansa ceded their Missouri lands and a wide area west, keeping a reservation thirty miles wide on the Kansas River.
- Signed
- June 3, 1825
- Senate
- Ratified
- Land given up
- about 22 million acres
What happened
What happened
On June 3, 1825, William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, signed a treaty at St. Louis with the chiefs, head men and warriors of the Kansas Nation.
The Kansas ceded "all the lands lying within the State of Missouri" to which they had title or claim. They also ceded the lands they occupied or claimed west of Missouri. The boundary began where the Kansas River enters the Missouri. It ran north to Missouri's northwest corner, west to the Nodewa River, then to the Big Nemaha and its source, and on to the source of the Kansas River.
From that cession the treaty reserved a tract for the Kansas. It began twenty leagues up the Kansas River, included their village there, and was thirty miles wide. The United States agreed to pay $3,500 a year for twenty years. It promised 300 cattle, 300 hogs, 500 fowls, three yoke of oxen and two carts, along with a blacksmith. Thirty-six sections of good land on the Big Blue River were to be sold to fund schools for Kansa children.
Article 6 made reservations for people of mixed ancestry. The Statutes at Large record a proclamation on December 30, 1825. The treaty text does not state the acreage.
Summarized with AI assistance from 2 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.
The Kansas do hereby cede to the United States all the lands lying within the State of Missouri
Tribal Treaties Database (OSU)Kansas Nation of Indians, duly authorized and empow-
Statutes at Large, vol. 7 (GovInfo)
Research notes. Acreage is not stated in the treaty. The sources cited do not say what happened to the reservation and annuities afterward.
What the treaty did to the land
About 22 million acres given up. Each shape is a numbered area in the federal government’s 1899 record of land cessions.
ceded to the United Statesabout 22 million acres
Land of the Kansas in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, ceded 1825 (area 124)
Ceded by the Kansas in 1825, giving up their lands in Missouri and a large area to the west, in Kansas and Nebraska.
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.
Who is doing the work
This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:
Native legal and land defense, nationally
- Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Native-led Litigation and legal advocacy for tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, land and resources Give on their site Website
- NDN Collective (LANDBACK Campaign) Native-led LANDBACK campaign (launched 2020; Mount Rushmore closure and return of Black Hills public lands), Indigenous… Give on their site Website
- Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) Native-led Land recovery and control by tribes and individual Indian landowners Website
- Decolonizing Wealth Project (Indigenous Earth Fund; California Tribal Land Return) Native-led Reparative philanthropy Give on their site Website
Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.
Sources
Sources
- treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-kansa-1825-0222reference work
June 3, 1825. | 7 Stat., 244. / scan: 222
Shapes are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land, title or jurisdiction.