Research Guides: Native American Law: Treaties

Online Treaty Resources

Indigenous Digital Archive - Treaties
The US National Archives holds 374 treaties, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. Here you can view them alongside key historic works.

Native American Treaties (via HeinOnline)
Hein's American Indian Law Collection now includes a comprehensive list of 418 Native American treaties, which are primarily derived from the Kappler index published in U.S. Statutes at Large. Of HeinOnline’s comprehensive index of 418 Native American treaties, 416 include full text coverage. HeinOnline also contains nine additional agreements not identified by Kappler, seven of which were with Great Britain and still recognized by the United States today.
Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
Treaties identified by Charles Kappler (digital collection available through Oklahoma State University Library). Contains volumes 1-7.
Early Recognized Treaties with American Indian Nations
This collection includes the nine additional treaties (as described above) that are not included in Kappler's compilation.
The Jay Treaty of 1794 and Associated Documents
This page links to documents associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794 (by Yale Law School, Avelon Project).
U.S. Statutes at Large, Volume 7
Volume 7 contains the text of Indian treaties entered into between 1778 and 1845.

Native Lands Map and Treaties

Native Land
Native-Land.ca is a resource produced by Native Land Digital, a not-for-profit striving to
enhance "the visibility and strength of indigenous history, narratives that combat colonialism, and education initiatives." Native-Land.ca is a web based resource that provides a map of original oc

Books on Native American Treaties

Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, and Sovereignty by Donald L. Fixico (Editor)
Call Number: Reference Collection KF8203.6 .T74 2008 v. 1-3
ISBN: 9781576078808
Publication Date: 2007-12-12
This invaluable reference reveals the long, often contentious history of Native American treaties, providing a rich overview of a topic of continuing importance. Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, and Sovereignty is the first comprehensive introduction to the treaties that promised land, self-government, financial assistance, and cultural protections to many of the over 500 tribes of North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada). Going well beyond describing terms and conditions, it is the only reference to explore the historical, political, legal, and geographical contexts in which each treaty took shape. Coverage ranges from the 1778 alliance with the Delaware tribe (the first such treaty), to the landmark Worcester v. Georgia case (1832), which affirmed tribal sovereignty, to the 1871 legislation that ended the treaty process, to the continuing impact of treaties in force today.
Pen and Ink Witchcraft: Treaties and treaty making in American Indian history by Colin G. Calloway
ISBN: 9780199917303
Publication Date: 2013-05-17
Indian peoples made some four hundred treaties with the United States between the American Revolution and 1871, when Congress prohibited them. They signed nine treaties with the Confederacy, as well as countless others over the centuries with Spain, France, Britain, Mexico, the Republic ofTexas, Canada, and even Russia, not to mention individual colonies and states. In retrospect, the treaties seem like well-ordered steps on the path of dispossession and empire. The reality was far more complicated.In Pen and Ink Witchcraft, eminent Native American historian Colin G. Calloway narrates the history of diplomacy between North American Indians and their imperial adversaries, particularly the United States. But the American republic increasingly turned treaty-making into a tool of encroachment on Indian territory. Calloway traces this process by focusing on the treaties of Fort Stanwix (1768), New Echota (1835), and Medicine Lodge (1867), in addition to such events as the Peace of Montreal in 1701 and the treaties of Fort Laramie (1851 and 1868).
The Power of Promises: Rethinking Indian treaties in the Pacific Northwest by Alexandra Harmon; John Borrows
ISBN: 9780295800462
Publication Date: 2011-12-01
Treaties with Native American groups in the Pacific Northwest have had profound and long-lasting implications for land ownership, resource access, and political rights in both the United States and Canada. In North America, where treaties have been employed hundreds of times to define relations between indigenous and colonial societies, many such pacts have continuing legal force, and many have been the focus of recent, high-stakes legal contests. The Power of Promises shows that Indian treaties have implications for important aspects of human history and contemporary existence, including struggles for political and cultural power, law's effect on people's self-conceptions, the functions of stories about the past, and the process of defining national and ethnic identities.
Tribes, Treaties and Constitutional Tribulations by Vine Deloria; David E. Wilkins
Call Number: Main Collection KF8210.C5 D45 1999
ISBN: 9780292716070
Publication Date: 1999-01-01
An historical examination of the relationship between Indians and the United States Constitution is undertaken in this book. It examines all sections of the Constitution that apply to Native Americans and discuss how they have been interpreted.
Faith in Paper: The ethnohistory and litigation of upper Great Lakes Indian treaties by Charles Cleland
ISBN: 9780472028498
Publication Date: 2011-10-05
Faith in Paper is about the reinstitution of Indian treaty rights in the Upper Great Lakes region during the last quarter of the 20th century. The book focuses on the treaties and legal cases that together have awakened a new day in Native American sovereignty and established the place of Indian tribes on the modern political landscape. In addition to discussing the historic development of Indian treaties and their social and legal context, Charles E. Cleland outlines specific treaties litigated in modern courts as well as the impact of treaty litigation on the modern Indian and non-Indian communities of the region.