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SoutheastTreaty

Reconstruction Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1866

In 1866 the Choctaw and Chickasaw ceded the leased district west of the 98th meridian for $300,000, held in trust until freedmen won citizenship.

Signed
April 28, 1866
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 7.7 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 April 28, 1866, in Washington, U.S. commissioners Dennis N. Cooley, Elijah Sells and Ely S. Parker signed a treaty with commissioners of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. The nations agreed that slavery and involuntary servitude would never again exist among them, except as punishment for crime.

In Article 3 they ceded to the United States "the territory west of the 98° west longitude, known as the leased district." The United States agreed to pay $300,000, but to hold it in trust at not less than five percent interest. The money would be released once the nations' legislatures passed laws giving formerly enslaved people of African descent, and their descendants, the rights of citizens, including suffrage, and forty acres each. If no such laws came within two years of ratification, the money would be held for those freedpeople whom the United States removed from the nations.

The treaty also allowed the United States to settle up to ten thousand "Kansas Indians" in the two nations, with the same rights as Choctaws and Chickasaws. It also made a general amnesty for past offenses against U.S. laws. The Department of the Interior reports that the Five Tribes' 1866 treaties treated freedmen differently. The sources here do not describe whether the Choctaw and Chickasaw legislatures passed the laws, or either nation's own account.

What was promised, and what happened

  • Not known

    Hold $300,000 in trust until the nations give freedpeople citizenship rights and forty acres each. (Art. 3)

    which the United States was to hold in trust until the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations enacted doi.gov

Good to know. The treaty text does not describe this cession as a penalty for any Confederate alliance.

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. in consideration of the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, hereby cede to the United States the territory west of the 98Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1866
  2. neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crime whereof the parties shall have been duly convictedTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1866
  3. Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations ceded certain lands in exchange for the sum of $300,000U.S. Department of the Interior: Oklahoma Tribes Reconstruction Treaties
  4. The Freedmen provisions in each of the 1866 treaties differed in important respects.U.S. Department of the Interior: Oklahoma Tribes Reconstruction Treaties

Research notes. The treaty text does not say the cession was a penalty for any Confederate alliance (unlike the Seminole and Creek preambles), so none is claimed. The sources cited here do not show whether the trust money was paid or the freedmen provisions carried out. The treaty itself uses 'leased district' and states no acreage.

What the treaty did to the land

About 7.7 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. 1855

    Land record

    About 7.7 million acres named in the record

    By Choctaw and Chickasaw at Washington, DC (1855)

    area 485

  2. 1866

    This treaty

    About 7.7 million acres ceded to the United States by the Chickasaw and Choctaw

    In 1866 the Choctaw and Chickasaw ceded the leased district west of the 98th meridian for $300,000, held in trust until freedmen won citizenship.

  3. 1898

    Law

    Curtis Act

    The 1898 Curtis Act abolished tribal courts in Indian Territory and ordered the Dawes Commission to allot Five Tribes land.

  4. 1898

    Promise broken

    Curtis Act (1898) and Oklahoma statehood (1907): Five Tribes governments dismantled and lands allotted

    The 1898 Curtis Act let allotment of Five Tribes land proceed without tribal consent and weakened their governments.

  5. 2020

    In court

    McGirt v. Oklahoma

    Land promised to the Creek Nation by treaty remains a reservation, so Oklahoma could not prosecute a tribal member there.

The law behind it

The legal ideas behind the decisions, and related records without a date. Court cases and laws with a date are in what happened next, above.

  • Legal doctrine

    canons of construction

    Courts read ambiguous treaties in favor of tribes and as the Indians would have understood them, rules the Supreme Court has repeated for more than a century.

  • Legal doctrine

    criminal jurisdiction

    Who may prosecute a crime in Indian country depends on who the offender and victim are and where it happened.

  • Legal doctrine

    diminishment

    Only Congress can shrink a reservation, and courts require a clear statement; Solem, Hagen and Parker show how that test works.

  • Legal doctrine

    disestablishment

    Disestablishment means Congress ended a reservation entirely; courts require clear intent from Congress, and McGirt (2020) held the Creek Reservation was never disestablished.

  • Legal doctrine

    indian country

    Federal law defines 'Indian country' as reservations, dependent Indian communities and Indian allotments; the definition decides which government's laws apply.

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. digitreaties.org/treaties/treaty/179008966reference work
Research notes

Stat. page per Stat. vol. 14 OCR index; Kappler page.

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