Treaty of Fond du Lac with the Chippewa, 1826

What happened

On August 5, 1826, Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney, commissioners for the United States, signed a treaty at Fond du Lac of Lake Superior with the Chippewa Tribe. It followed the Prairie du Chien treaty of the year before, which ended a long war between the Chippewas and Sioux.

The preamble explains the problem. Because of the "remote and dispersed situation of the Chippewas," full deputations of their bands "did not attend at Prairie du Chien." That would leave the 1825 treaty "of doubtful obligation" for the bands not represented. The 1825 treaty itself had promised to assemble Chippewa leaders on Lake Superior to explain it.

In Article 1 the Chiefs and Warriors "fully assent" to the 1825 treaty. In Article 2 they agreed to send a deputation to Green Bay in 1827 to fix the boundary with the Winnebagoes and Menomonees, which had been left incomplete. In Article 3 they granted the United States the right to search for, and carry away, metals or minerals "from any part of their country." The grant "is not to affect the title of the land, nor the existing jurisdiction over it."

Article 4 granted 640 acres to each person on an attached schedule, people of mixed Chippewa and European descent (the treaty calls them "half-breeds"), on the islands and shore of the St. Mary's River. Article 5 set an annuity of $2,000 in money or goods. The Statutes at Large record a proclamation on February 7, 1827.

Summarized with AI assistance from 2 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error