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Treaty

Delaware at Sarcoxieville, Delaware Reservation, Kansas Territory (1860)

The 1860 Delaware treaty allotted 80 acres per person and let a railroad company buy the remaining reservation land.

Signed
May 30, 1860
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 333,000 acres
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

In May 1860, at Sarcoxieville on the Delaware reservation in Kansas Territory, Commissioner Thomas B. Sykes and Delaware chiefs agreed to survey the reservation and divide it. Each member of the tribe would receive an eighty-acre tract, inalienable except to the United States or other Delawares. Small tracts were also reserved around the mill, school, council house, missions and agency.

The treaty says the Delawares believed a railroad would raise the value of their lands. It gave the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad Company the first right to buy the remaining land at an appraised price of no less than $1.25 per acre. The company would also get a perpetual right of way over allotted land for just compensation. Patents were tied to building the road, and unsold land would revert to the nation if the company defaulted.

The OSU treaty database lists ratification on July 27, 1860. A July 1861 Delaware agreement, also in this atlas, recorded the railroad company's mortgage of 100,000 acres of Delaware land to secure its bonds.

Good to know. That the Delawares "expressed a desire" for the railroad sale is the treaty's own wording.

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. to each member of the Delaware tribe there shall be assigned a tract of land containing eighty acresTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1860
  2. said Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad Company shall have the preference of purchasing the remainder of their landsTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1860
  3. a mortgage of the company on the one hundred thousand acres of Delaware Indian landsTreaty with the Delawares, 1861 (OSU Tribal Treaties Database)

Research notes. This account is based on the treaty texts alone. The treaty says the railroad preference reflects what the Delawares wanted; whether railroad lobbying shaped it is not shown in the cited sources. The treaty was ratified July 27, 1860, and proclaimed August 22, 1860.

What the treaty did to the land

About 333,000 acres given up. 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.

  1. 1854

    Land kept

    About 333,000 acres recognized as land of the Delaware

    By Delaware at Washington, DC (1854)

    area 425

  2. 1854

    Land kept

    About 48,000 acres set aside as a reservation for the Delaware

    By Delaware at Washington, DC (1854)

    area 488

  3. 1860

    This treaty

    About 333,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Delaware. Part of the land ceded by the Delaware

    The 1860 Delaware treaty allotted 80 acres per person and let a railroad company buy the remaining reservation land.

  4. 1861

    Land record

    Earlier terms confirmed for the land of the Delaware

    By Delaware Tribe of Indians at Leavenworth City, Kansas (1861)

    area 425

  5. 1866

    Land lost

    About 48,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Delaware

    By Delaware at Delaware Agency, Kansas (1866)

    area 488

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-delawares-1860-0803reference work
    Treaty with the Delawares, 1860 May 30, 1860. | 12 Stat., 1129.

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