Treaty of St. Louis 1804: cession signed by a delegation with no authority to sell

What happened

The Treaty of St. Louis (Nov. 3, 1804; 7 Stat. 84; ratified Jan. 25, 1805) was made between William Henry Harrison and the "chiefs and head men of the united Sac and Fox tribes." In Article 2, the tribes agreed to "cede and relinquish forever to the United States, all the lands included" within a described boundary. In return they received goods worth $2,234.50 and, under Article 3, yearly goods worth $1,000. Article 7 let the tribes live and hunt on the ceded land while it remained United States property.

Black Hawk's 1833 autobiography, a primary but dictated account, tells a different story of why the delegation went. He says four men were sent to St. Louis to have a man of their nation released from prison. He says they came back unable to recall what had been said, and that it "subsequently appeared that they had been drunk the greater part of the time." He asks "whether our nation was properly represented in this treaty," and calls it "the origin of all our serious difficulties with the whites."

In 1815, at Portage des Sioux, Sauk leaders on the Missouri River assented to the 1804 treaty and promised to enforce it. The Tribal Treaties Database lists three successor nations: the Sac & Fox Nation (Oklahoma), the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, and the Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska. This is context, not an adjudicated violation: the treaty text shows a signed and ratified cession, and the doubt about the delegation's authority comes from Black Hawk's account.

Good to know. The claim that the delegation lacked authority comes from Black Hawk's own dictated autobiography. The 1815 approval came only from a Sauk group on the Missouri River, not the whole 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