A cession is the formal giving up of land, territory or rights by one party to another, usually by treaty. In U.S. history, it describes how Indigenous nations — including those on Lake Michigan's southern shore — were pressured or forced into unequal treaties that transferred their lands to the United States and displaced Native peoples from their ancestral homes.
"Indiana" means "Land of the Indians," named for the state's first inhabitants. The land that is now Indiana Dunes National Park was home to Miami peoples and later the Potawatomi.
Northern Indiana, with numbered cessions. From C. C. Royce, Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by those in the State of Indiana (1881). Credit: Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.
How to read the map
In 1881 Charles C. Royce of the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology mapped every parcel Indiana's Native nations ceded by treaty. Each is outlined in a color — scarlet, green, blue, yellow, purple — and given a number from 1 to 54. Find a number on the map, and its entry gives the treaty, its date and the nations who signed. Overlapping claims show up as overlapping outlines, sometimes dotted.
Indiana's land cessions. From Royce (1881). Credit: Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.
The treaties, 1795–1840
| Period | What was ceded |
|---|---|
| 1795 | By the treaty of August 3, 1795, with the Wyandots, Delawares, Miamis and nine other nations: a sliver of southeastern Indiana at the western end of a cession mostly in Ohio (No. 1), and small tracts around forts and posts — six miles square at Fort Wayne (No. 2), two miles square at the portage on the Wabash (No. 3), and six miles square at Ouiatenon, the Old Wea Towns (No. 4). The treaty also excluded Clark's Grant on the Ohio, promised by Virginia to Gen. George Rogers Clark and his soldiers (No. 5), and the Vincennes tract (No. 6), whose boundaries were set by a treaty of June 7, 1803 |
| 1804–1805 | Southern Indiana, by the Delawares (August 18, 1804) and Piankeshaws (August 27, 1804) (No. 7); the southeast, by the Miamis, Eel Rivers and Weas (August 21, 1805) (No. 8) |
| 1809 | Three tracts by the Miami, Eel River, Delaware and Potawatomi nations on September 30 (Nos. 9–11), with the Weas concurring in October and the Kickapoos consenting on December 9, when they also ceded a tract partly in Illinois (No. 12) |
| 1817–1819 | The Wyandots (1817, No. 13); the Potawatomi (October 2, 1818, No. 14); the Weas, all their claims except a small Wabash reserve (October 2, 1818); the Delawares, all their claims in Indiana (October 3, 1818); the Miamis, nearly all of central Indiana (October 6, 1818, No. 15), less several reserves kept for their own use; and the Kickapoos (1819, No. 16) |
| 1820–1828 | The Weas' last reserve (1820, No. 17); a mostly Michigan tract by the Ottawas, Chippewas and Potawatomi (1821, No. 18); Potawatomi lands north of the Wabash and in the northwest corner (October 16, 1826, Nos. 19–20); the Miamis' claims north and west of the Wabash and Maumee, except small reserves (October 23, 1826); the Eel River Miamis' reserve (1828, No. 21); more Potawatomi land (September 20, 1828, No. 22) |
| 1832 | The Potawatomi cede the northwest (October 26, No. 23) and then any remaining claim in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan Territory south of the Grand River (October 27, No. 24) — keeping small tracts for particular bands, seven under the first treaty and eleven under the second |
| 1834–1836 | The Miamis give up eight small reserves (October 23, 1834, Nos. 25–32), one of them — ten sections at the Forks of the Wabash — patented to John B. Richardville. One by one, Potawatomi bands cede their reserves (Nos. 33–47): Com-o-za's, Mau-ke-kose's, Mota's, Mes-quaw-buck's, Che-case's, Aub-ba-naub-bee's and others, until the cessions of September 23, 1836, give up all their remaining lands in Indiana |
| 1838–1840 | The Miamis cede several of their remaining reserves, including much of the "Big Reserve" (November 6, 1838, Nos. 48–52), and the rest of the Big Reserve (November 28, 1840, No. 53) |
The last tract
The 1838 Miami treaty set aside a reserve ten miles square for the band of Me-to-sin-ia (No. 54). In 1840, the United States agreed to convey it to his son, Me-shing-go-me-sia, in trust for the band. By an act of Congress approved June 10, 1872, the reserve was divided among the band's 63 members, each receiving a patent for their share.
That, Royce recorded, ended all Native tribal title to land in the State of Indiana.
Sources
Based on "Cessions of Land by Indigenous Peoples in the State of Indiana," Indiana Dunes National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The article reproduces the maps and descriptions from Charles C. Royce, Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by those in the State of Indiana (Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 1881).
In these publicationsIndiana Dunes National Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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