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All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Delaware at Delaware Agency, Kansas (1866)

In 1866 the Delaware agreed to leave Kansas for Indian Territory and let the Interior Secretary sell their remaining reservation, mainly to a railroad.

Signed
July 4, 1866
Senate
Ratified
Land given up
about 48,000 acres
Promises
0 of 1 broken or only partly kept
The land in this treaty’s record. Open on the map

What happened

On July 4, 1866, at the Delaware Agency in Kansas, U.S. officials Thomas Murphy, John G. Pratt and William H. Watson signed articles of agreement with Delaware chiefs Captain John Connor, Captain Sarcoxie and Charles Journeycake and four councillors. The preamble says Congress had made it the President's duty "to provide by treaty for the removal of the Indian tribes from the State of Kansas." It says the Delawares "have expressed a wish" to move to the Indian country between Kansas and Texas. It also says the Missouri River Railroad Company wanted to buy the reservation in a body.

Article 2 let the Secretary of the Interior sell the rest of the reservation to that company, or other responsible buyers, for not less than $2.50 an acre, not counting improvements. Adult Delawares who had allotments could choose, "free from all restraint," to dissolve their tribal relations and become U.S. citizens, and their lands were held out of the sale.

Article 4 had the United States sell the Delawares land in the Indian country, ceded by the Choctaw and Chickasaw, Creek or Seminole, up to 160 acres for each person who moved. The Delawares were to pay for it from the Kansas sale proceeds. Article 5 guaranteed them peaceable possession and protection from hostile Indians. Article 1 also required the United States to secure the full value of land already sold to the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad. The sources here do not give the Delawares' own account or events after removal.

What was promised, and what happened

  • Not known

    Guarantee the Delawares peaceable possession of their new home and protection from hostile Indians. (Art. 5)

    The United States guarantee to the said Delewares peaceable possession of their new home treaties.okstate.edu

Good to know. That the Delawares "expressed a wish" to move is the treaty's own wording.

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. to provide by treaty for the removal of the Indian tribes from the State of KansasTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1866
  2. for a price not less than two dollars and fifty cents per acre, exclusive of improvementsTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1866
  3. to be paid for by the Delawares out of the proceeds of sales of lands in KansasTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1866
  4. The United States guarantee to the said Delewares peaceable possession of their new homeTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Delawares, 1866

Research notes. This account draws on the treaty text only. The preamble says the Delawares 'expressed a wish' to remove, in a treaty made under a law directing the removal of tribes from Kansas; the text does not say more about how freely that wish was formed. No Delaware source is cited.

What the treaty did to the land

About 48,000 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. 1854

    Land kept

    About 48,000 acres set aside as a reservation for the Delaware

    By Delaware at Washington, DC (1854)

    area 488

  2. 1860

    Land lost

    Part of the land ceded by the Delaware

    By Delaware at Sarcoxieville, Delaware Reservation, Kansas Territory (1860)

    area 488

  3. 1866

    This treaty

    About 48,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Delaware

    In 1866 the Delaware agreed to leave Kansas for Indian Territory and let the Interior Secretary sell their remaining reservation, mainly to a railroad.

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-delawares-1866-0937reference work
    Treaty with the Delawares, 1866 July 4, 1866. | 14 Stats., 793.

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