Living Law,
Living LandSupport land rights
All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Osage (Great and Little) at Canville Trading Post, Osage Nation, Kansas (1865)

In 1865 the Osage sold a 50-by-30-mile strip of Kansas land for $300,000 and ceded a 20-mile strip to be sold in trust.

Signed
September 29, 1865
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 4.4 million acres
Promises
0 of 1 broken or only partly kept
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On September 29, 1865, at Canville Trading Post in Kansas, D. N. Cooley, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern superintendency, signed a treaty with the chiefs of the Great and Little Osage. The treaty says the Osage had "more lands than are necessary for their occupation," that payments under earlier treaties had ceased, "leaving them greatly impoverished," and that they wished to improve their condition by selling surplus land.

The Osage sold the strip that starts at the southeast corner of their reservation and runs fifty miles north along the eastern boundary, then thirty miles west. The United States agreed to pay $300,000, credited to the tribe in the Treasury, with five percent yearly interest paid twice a year in money, clothing, provisions or other useful articles. The land was to be surveyed and sold as public land, including any land granted to Kansas to help build a railroad. After the United States was repaid its costs and the $300,000, the remaining proceeds went to a general "civilization fund" for the education of Indian tribes across the United States, not to the Osage.

The Osage also ceded a tract twenty miles wide off the north side of the rest of the reservation. It was to be held in trust and sold for the tribe's benefit at not less than $1.25 an acre. The sources here do not describe what followed or the Osage Nation's own account.

What was promised, and what happened

  • Not known

    Credit $300,000 to the tribe in the Treasury and pay five percent yearly interest, twice a year. (Art. 1)

    interest thereon at the rate of five per centum per annum shall be paid to said tribes semi-annually treaties.okstate.edu

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 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. all payments from the Government to them under former treaties having ceased, leaving them greatly impoverishedTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Osage, 1865
  2. running thence north with the eastern boundary thereof fifty miles to the northeast corner; thence west with the northern line thirty milesTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Osage, 1865
  3. the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, which sum shall be placed to the credit of said tribeTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Osage, 1865
  4. a tract of land twenty miles in width from north to south, off the north side of the remainder of their present reservationTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Osage, 1865

Research notes. This account draws on the treaty text only. The treaty says the Osage were greatly impoverished after U.S. payments under earlier treaties ceased; the treaty does not say more about the circumstances of the sale. No Osage-authored source is cited.

What the treaty did to the land

About 4.4 million 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. 1825

    Land kept

    About 1.2 million acres set aside as a reservation for the Osage

    By Osage at St. Louis (1825)

    area 475

  2. 1865

    This treaty

    About 4.4 million acres ceded to the United States by the Osage

    In 1865 the Osage sold a 50-by-30-mile strip of Kansas land for $300,000 and ceded a 20-mile strip to be sold in trust.

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:

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-osage-1865-0878reference work
    Treaty with the Osage, 1865 Sept. 29, 1865. | 14 Stat., 687.

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