Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek with the Choctaw, 1830

What happened

On September 27, 1830, commissioners John H. Eaton and John Coffee signed a treaty at Dancing Rabbit Creek for the United States with the Choctaw Nation. The preamble says the General Assembly of Mississippi had extended the state's laws over Choctaw land. It says the President of the United States "has said that he cannot protect the Choctaw people from the operation of these laws," and the Choctaw "have determined to sell their lands east of the Mississippi."

In Article 3 the Choctaw ceded "the entire country they own and possess, east of the Mississippi River." They agreed to move west in three groups over the falls of 1831, 1832 and 1833. The United States promised a tract west of the river, near Fort Smith, "in fee simple." It also promised $20,000 a year for twenty years after their removal.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama calls this the first treaty after the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and says the cession was "more than 10 million acres." It says the chiefs twice rejected the terms, and Eaton and Coffee then met secretly with selected chiefs. Article 14 let a head of family who wished to become a citizen claim a section of 640 acres. The Encyclopedia says land agents "failed to record the vast majority of Choctaw claims" before the deadline.

It says about 13,000 Choctaws went west over the next few years, with great hardship, and about 6,000 never left or returned to Mississippi and Alabama.

Good to know. The Encyclopedia of Alabama puts the cession at more than 10 million acres and dates Senate ratification to February 25, 1831; the statute lists a proclamation on February 24, 1831.

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