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All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Potawatomi at Agency on the Kansas River, Kansas (1861)

The 1861 Potawatomi treaty allotted part of the Kansas reservation and set the rest for sale, with a railroad purchase option.

Signed
November 15, 1861
Senate
Ratified
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On November 15, 1861, Commissioner William W. Ross and chiefs, braves and headmen of the Potawatomi agreed to dispose of part of their Kansas reservation, which the treaty says held 576,000 acres. The reservation had been acquired under an 1846 treaty for $87,000. Members who wanted separate farms could receive eighty acres each. Those who preferred common ownership could hold land together. The remainder was to be sold for the tribe's benefit.

The treaty gave the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad the first chance to buy the surplus land at $1.25 per acre. It had to build sections of road within set years, and patents would issue only as sections were finished. The President could also grant fee-simple patents to male allottees judged "sufficiently intelligent and prudent."

The text shows allotment, sale and a railroad option, not a removal. The OSU treaty database lists ratification on April 15, 1862. It records proclamation on April 19, 1862.

Good to know. The 576,000 acres is the size of the whole reservation, not the amount sold.

Summarized with AI assistance from 2 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. consisting of five hundred and seventy-six thousand acresTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Potawatomi, 1861
  2. at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acreTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Potawatomi, 1861

Research notes. This account is based on the treaty text alone, so it does not describe what happened afterward. The 576,000 acres is the size of the whole Kansas reservation, not the amount sold.

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-potawatomi-1861-0824reference work
    Treaty with the Potawatomi, 1861 Nov. 15, 1861. | 12 Stats., 1191.

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