Government Treaties with Native Americans

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Government Treaties with Native Americans

Background. Since the first Europeans landed in the Western Hemisphere, they and the indigenous peoples they called Indians have made many agreements, often known as treaties. In theory these treaties set out the guidelines for how these different cultures would get along and share resources and lands. In practice, however, treaties between American Indians and Euro-Americans often caused as much conflict as they resolved. Over time both groups, but especially the U.S. government, abridged the terms of these treaties. Particularly during the era of Western expansion, controversies over treaty interpretation and enforcement led to conflict between indigenous and American peoples.

Conflicts. There are several reasons these conflicts occurred. When the colonists first began negotiating treaties with Native Americans, they were relatively powerless against the more numerous Indians. Therefore, colonial treaty makers often took pains to placate the Indians; normally these diplomats recognized distinctions between Native American nations. However, over time this balance of power began to shift. The numbers of European settlers in the New World grew, and

they also brought new diseases with them, so-called virgin soil epidemics to which Indian populations had no acquired immunities. As time passed indigenous populations decreased drastically. Eventually the devastation wrought by the Revolutionary War weakened Eastern Indian communities as well as their negotiating power at the bargaining table.

Negotiations. After it formed, the U.S. government repeatedly negotiated with Indian communities. In nearly every instance the government’s basic goal was to gain more land to open it for westward-moving Americans, most of them of European origin. Over time the federal government became increasingly rigid in its tactics, a policy that made it difficult for Indian communities to get what they wanted. Further, negotiators for the federal government typically identified selected native leaders and dealt exclusively with them. For example, in the controversy over Indian removal in Georgia, Andrew Jackson stubbornly negotiated only with the “Treaty Party” of Cherokees, who in the nation were outnumbered 17 to 1. Still, Jackson maintained that the treaty signed by the Treaty Party was binding on the rest of the tribe.

Trouble in the West. Prior to the Civil War the strong Western Indian nations still held an upper hand in treaty negotiations. At the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, and Ankara peoples agreed to allow pioneers to safely cross the plains in exchange for annuities from the federal government. However, promises such as this often proved hollow, especially after the United States descended into the Civil War. The federal government could not afford to pay the annuities in the agreed-upon gold coin, let alone provide the promised rations, education, and health care. Also, the federal government was often unable or unwilling to enforce restrictions on white settlers, such as land boundaries, or regulate the alcohol trade. As a result many Indian peoples renounced the treaties and at times turned to violence against settlers and the U.S. Army as the only way left to assert their rights.

Conclusion. Indigenous peoples suffered from the United States’s often egregious abridgment of the treaties. Yet even this fact does not lessen the initiative that Indians took in asserting their demands and destinies as white Western expansion transformed Indian country.