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All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Kiowa and Comanche at Little Arkansas River, Kansas (1865)

In 1865 the Comanche and Kiowa agreed at the Little Arkansas River to a southern plains reservation and gave up claims elsewhere.

Signed
October 18, 1865
Senate
Ratified
Land set aside for the nations
about 126 million acres
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On October 18, 1865, at the council ground on the Little Arkansas River, seven U.S. commissioners signed a treaty with chiefs of several Comanche bands and of the Kiowa. The commissioners included John B. Sanborn, William S. Harney and Kit Carson.

Article 2 set apart a district of the southern plains for the tribes' "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation." It runs from the northeast corner of New Mexico down to the Red River, along the 98th degree of west longitude, and up the Cimarron River to the southern line of Kansas. Only officers, agents and employees of the government, or people formally adopted into a tribe, could live there.

The tribes agreed to move there when the President directed. They agreed to carry written permission when away to hunt, and not to camp within ten miles of main roads, military posts, towns or villages. They gave up all claims outside the reservation, naming "the country north of the Cimarone River and west of the eastern boundary of New Mexico."

The United States kept the right to build roads and military posts through the reservation, with compensation for injury set by Congress. Article 5 promised annual spending for forty years. The sources here do not trace later events.

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. set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the tribes who are parties to this treatyTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa, 1865
  2. the country north of the Cimarone River and west of the eastern boundary of New MexicoTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa, 1865
  3. they will not while so absent encamp, by day or night, within ten miles of any of the main travelled routesTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa, 1865

Research notes. This account draws on the treaty text only, which does not describe the pressures behind the treaty or what happened afterward.

What the treaty did to the land

About 126 million acres recognized, kept or set aside for the nations. 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. 1865

    This treaty

    About 126 million acres set aside as a reservation for the Comanche and Kiowa

    In 1865 the Comanche and Kiowa agreed at the Little Arkansas River to a southern plains reservation and gave up claims elsewhere.

  2. 1867

    Land lost

    Part of the land ceded by the Comanche and Kiowa

    By Treaty of Medicine Lodge (Kiowa and Comanche), 1867

    area 511

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-comanche-and-kiowa-1865-0892reference work
    Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa, 1865 Oct. 18, 1865. | 14 Stat., 717.

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