Potawatomi at Washington, DC (1866)

What happened

This short treaty was signed in Washington on March 29, 1866, by Commissioner Dennis N. Cooley and a three-man Potawatomi business committee. It amends a treaty made on November 15, 1861, at the agency on the Kansas River, which the Senate had amended in 1862.

The 1861 treaty set out to dispose of part of the 576,000-acre Potawatomi reservation in Kansas, and to allot land in severalty to those who had "adopted the customs of the whites." Its Article 3 said that if the President became satisfied that adult males who headed families and held allotments were "sufficiently intelligent and prudent to control their affairs," he could have their land patented in fee simple with power to sell. They would get their share of the tribe's trust money and of land sales, cease to be tribal members, and become citizens of the United States. They first had to appear in federal court in Kansas and take the naturalization oath.

The 1866 text has one article. The "beneficial provisions" of that third article, it says, "shall not hereafter be confined to males and heads of families," but extend to all adult tribal persons "without distinction of sex," on the same terms. The treaty was ratified April 26, 1866, and proclaimed May 5, 1866.

Summarized with AI assistance from 3 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error