Treaty of Prairie du Chien (1830), Sauk, Fox, Sioux, Omaha, Iowa, Oto, Missouri

What happened

On July 15, 1830, William Clark and Willoughby Morgan signed a treaty at Prairie du Chien for the United States. The other parties were the Sacs and Foxes, four bands of Sioux, and the Omahas, Ioways, Ottoes and Missourias. The preamble says the tribes were "anxious to remove all causes which may hereafter create any unfriendly feeling between them." It adds that hunting, they were "sensible," would "soon entirely fail them."

In Article 1 the tribes ceded a large tract bounded by the Des Moines, Little Sioux, Big Sioux (Calumet) and Missouri rivers and the Missouri state line. The ceded land was to be assigned by the President to tribes living there, or to others he chose. In Articles 2 and 3 the Sacs and Foxes and the Sioux each ceded a strip twenty miles wide from the Mississippi to the Des Moines.

In return the United States agreed to annuities for ten years, from $500 to $3,000 for each group, plus blacksmiths and $3,000 a year for education. It distributed $5,132 in goods, which, together with the annuities, the treaty called "a full compensation."

Treaties Matter, a Minnesota Historical Society project, says that after "threatening a military invasion and trade embargo," the United States insisted that peace among the nations required land cessions by the Dakota and Sac and Fox. It describes the smaller strip as a "neutral ground." Yankton and Santee Sioux, not fully represented, would be bound if they signed.

Good to know. The pressure described comes from Treaties Matter, not the treaty text, which also does not call the strip a "neutral ground".

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