Identification

• Yale Law School lists the treaties between the United States and American Indians in the early 1800s as the 1805 Chickasaw Treaty; the 1816 Treaty with the Chickasaw; the 1818 Treaty with the Chickasaw; the Refusal of the Chickasaws and Choctaws to Cede Their Lands in Mississippi in 1826; the Treaty With the Potowatami of 1828; and the Unratified Treaty with the Chicasaw of 1830.
  
  

Features

• The treaties between the United States and American Indian tribes can be understood as agreements between sovereign nations, according to Robert J. Miller, professor of law and author of "Native America: Discovered and Conquered." The treaties of the early 1800s documented the desire for good diplomatic relations and memorialized land deals whereby, in exchange for cession of certain lands, tribes reserved other parcels and accepted compensation such as goods, fishing, hunting and gathering rights, or cash from the United States government.
  
  

U.S. Internal Politics: The 1803 Louisiana Purchase

• After 1803, when the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory from the French, white Europeans began to move into the territory. Clashes with American Indians grew, along with political pressure to resolve the problem, according to The Trail of Tears Association. National policy to relocate American Indians west of the Mississippi River developed and treaties whittled away at tribal lands, culminating in the unilateral federal removal policy adopted in 1825.
  
  

U.S. External Politics: The War of 1812

• American Indians were negotiating from a position of strength through the early 1800s, according to Miller. The United States was still young, dealing with internal and external conflict and could not afford poor relations with the Indian tribes. Thus, treaties before the War of 1812 were often favorable to American Indians. With the European threat subdued, however, the United States exploited its powerful position in increasingly one-sided treaty negotiations.
  
  

The 1830s: The Trail of Tears

• The Chickasaws were one of five southeastern area tribes most harshly affected by the 1825 removal policy, which was carried out in force by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren in the 1830s. Two treaties -- the 1826 Refusal of the Chickasaw and Choctaws to Cede their Lands in Mississippi and the Treaty With the Chickasaw of 1830, Unratified -- starkly illustrate the breakdown of negotiating power. Chickasaw, Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles were forced to relocate westward in the 1830s along the notorious "Trail of Tears," named for the hardships endured along the way and the loss of ancestral lands.