Miami at Forks of the Wabash, Indiana (1834)

What happened

On October 23, 1834, William Marshall, commissioner of the United States, concluded a treaty at the Forks of the Wabash in Indiana with the chiefs and warriors of the Miami tribe. The Miami agreed to cede several tracts in Indiana. All of them were parts of reservations made to the tribe in earlier treaties, at Wabash in 1826 and St. Mary's in 1818. They included thirty-six sections at Flat Belly's village and about twenty-three thousand acres along the Wabash. The treaty gives no total acreage.

For the cession the United States agreed to pay $208,000. Of that, $58,000 was due within six months of ratification, $50,000 was to go to the debts of the tribe, and $100,000 would come in annual installments of $10,000. The United States also agreed to pay $1,500 for horses the treaty says whites had stolen from the Miami. It agreed to have buildings and improvements on the ceded land valued, and to fund similar improvements where the chiefs chose.

The treaty also directed patents (land titles from the President) for named individuals. John B. Richardville, called principal chief of the Miami, received a patent in fee simple for a ten-section reserve at the Forks of the Wabash. The Senate amended the treaty, and the chiefs and warriors gave their assent on November 10, 1837. It was proclaimed on December 22, 1837.

Good to know. The payment schedule follows a printing that combines the 1834 text with the 1837 Senate amendment and Miami assent; the original statute words the payment terms differently.

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