Creeks and Seminole at Washington, DC (1856)

What happened

On August 7, 1856, in Washington, Commissioner George W. Manypenny and commissioners for the Creek and Seminole signed a convention. In Article 1 the Creek Nation granted and ceded to the Seminole a tract in what is now central Oklahoma, between the Canadian River and the North Fork of the Canadian and extending west to the 100th meridian (the treaty calls it the "one hundredth parallel of west longitude"). Article 2 fixed the boundaries of the Creek country, and Article 3 had the United States guarantee both. The Seminole land could not be sold without the consent of both tribes.

The preamble gives the reasons. The existing arrangement between the Creek and Seminole had "given rise to unhappy and injurious dissensions." The United States wanted "to induce them to emigrate and become one people with their brethren already west," by giving the Seminoles remaining in Florida a home west of the Mississippi. It also aimed to settle the Creek Nation's claims against the United States.

The Seminole Nation Museum says that in 1856, after nearly twenty years under Creek rule, the Seminoles made a treaty "establishing a Seminole Nation in Oklahoma." The same page says the Civil War then set the Five Tribes against each other.

Good to know. The treaty text calls the western boundary the "one hundredth parallel of west longitude"; the Seminole Nation Museum calls the same line the 100th meridian.

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