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Treaty

Sioux (Blackfeet) at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory (1865)

The October 1865 Blackfeet Sioux treaty paid $7,000 a year for twenty years in return for leaving overland routes.

Signed
October 19, 1865
Senate
Ratified

What happened

On October 19, 1865, a United States commission met chiefs and head-men of the Blackfeet band of Dakota (Sioux) at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory. Commissioners were Governor Newton Edmunds, Edward B. Taylor, Major-General S. R. Curtis, Brigadier-General H. H. Sibley, Henry W. Reed and Orrin Guernsey. The band is a Sioux band, not the Blackfeet Nation of Montana.

Article 1 has the band acknowledge itself subject to United States jurisdiction and promise to stop hostilities against its citizens. Later articles have the band end attacks on other tribes unless attacked first, and send disputes with other tribes to the President for a decision.

Article 4 is the trade. The band was to "withdraw from the routes overland already established or hereafter to be established, through their country." In return the United States agreed to pay $7,000 a year for twenty years, in articles chosen by the Secretary of the Interior, so long as the band faithfully kept the treaty.

Article 5 says any Senate amendment would be final and binding on the band as part of the treaty, as if the chiefs had agreed to it. This text has no farming or reservation article, unlike some of the sister treaties. It was ratified March 5, 1866, and proclaimed March 17, 1866.

Good to know. This treaty ceded no land. These "Blackfeet" are a Sioux band, a different people from the Blackfeet Nation.

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. shall withdraw from the routes overland already established or hereafter to be established, through their countryTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Sioux (Blackfeet) at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory (1865)
  2. the sum of seven thousand dollars annually, for twenty years, in such articles as the Secretary of the Interior may directTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Sioux (Blackfeet) at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory (1865)
  3. Any amendment or modification of this treaty by theTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Sioux (Blackfeet) at Fort Sully, Dakota Territory (1865)

Research notes. This account covers the signed terms only; the treaty text does not say what happened afterward, including later treaties. The text shows no cession of land. The treaty calls the band the Blackfeet band of Dakota or Sioux Indians; this is a different people from the Blackfeet Nation.

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

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Sources

  1. treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-blackfeet-sioux-1865-0898reference work
    Treaty with the Blackfeet Sioux, 1865 Oct. 19, 1865. | 14 Stat., 727.

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