Living Law,
Living LandSupport land rights
All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Chippewa of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River at Detroit, Michigan (1855)

The 1855 Detroit treaty gave Saginaw, Swan Creek and Black River Chippewa Isabella County land and allotments for ceding other Michigan land.

Signed
August 2, 1855
Senate
Ratified
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On August 2, 1855, at Detroit, commissioners George W. Manypenny and Henry C. Gilbert signed an agreement with the Chippewa of Saginaw and the part of the Swan Creek and Black River band still in Michigan. The United States withdrew from sale "six adjoining townships of land in the county of Isabella" for the Indians, and gave 80 acres to each head of a family and 40 acres to each single adult. Article 3 ceded all the lands the bands had owned, and Article 6 dissolved their tribal organization.

A Central Michigan University library history says missionaries pushed for the arrangement, and that individual Indians could select acreage and eventually receive a patent. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's own history says the 1855 and 1864 treaties established the Isabella Indian Reservation, totaling over 130,000 acres divided into allotments.

The tribe says conditions were grim, annuity payments were delayed, and "many of our people sold their allotments to lumber sharks for a small fraction of their value." It records that a federal court upheld the reservation's historical boundaries in 2010.

Good to know. The 130,000-acre figure covers both the 1855 and 1864 treaties.

Summarized with AI assistance from 3 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.

  1. Six adjoining townships of land in the county of IsabellaTreaty with the Chippewa of Saginaw, etc., 1855 (Oklahoma State University Tribal Treaties Database)
  2. Many of our people sold their allotments to lumber sharks for a small fraction of their value.History, Ziibiwing Center, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe
  3. Federal lands in an area of six townships of Isabella County were withdrawn from sale in the land officeIsabella Indian Reservation, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University

Research notes. The CMU history says the early reservation story is poorly documented and surrounded by myth. The Saginaw Chippewa history says the Isabella Indian Reservation, established by the 1855 and 1864 treaties, totaled over 130,000 acres. The 2010 court ruling is mentioned only in the tribe's timeline; this account does not describe it further. The treaty was ratified April 15, 1856, and proclaimed June 21, 1856.

What the treaty did to the land

Each shape is a numbered area in the federal government’s 1899 record of land cessions.

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.

This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:

Working with these nations

Native legal and land defense, nationally

Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.

Sources

  1. treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-chippewa-of-saginaw-etc-1855-0733reference work
    Treaty with the Chippewa of Saginaw, etc., 1855 Aug. 2, 1855. | 11 Stat., 633.

Shapes are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land, title or jurisdiction.