Indigenous · History Classes · Grades 7–9

Peoples, Treaties and Writings

History Class · Level band: Grades 7–9

English edition — the language editions of the history classes are outstanding and will follow the site’s translation pattern; none is fabricated here.

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy)

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = supported by a treaty text, court record, or published scholarship cited in Sources. Tradition — the people's own account = Haudenosaunee oral tradition / nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = a point scholars dispute; the range or dispute is stated, not resolved here. No ceremonial instructions are given. Community-restricted knowledge is named only as restricted, or omitted.

The Haudenosaunee — "People of the Longhouse" in the constituent languages, as nation sources render the name — are a confederacy originally of five nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, joined by Tuscarora in the early 18th century as the sixth nation (Onondaga Nation, n.d., "Haudenosaunee Confederacy"; Britannica, "Iroquois Confederacy"). Onondaga remains the confederacy's capital and keeper of the central council fire in nation accounts (Onondaga Nation, n.d.).

Treaties Particular to Them

• Two Row Wampum — Guswenta / Kaswentha (1613, as dated in Haudenosaunee tradition). Tradition and nation position: an agreement with the Dutch in 1613 establishing two parallel paths — a Haudenosaunee canoe and a European ship — mutual respect and non-interference in each other's laws and ways (Onondaga Nation, 2010, "The Haudenosaunee Confederacy: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Passports"; Onondaga Nation, n.d., Guswenta). The agreement is recorded in wampum and oral tradition. Debated — documentary question: scholars dispute the authenticity and date of a surviving written document purporting to record a 1613 Tawagonshi treaty; the Journal of Early American History devoted a special issue to the Two Row tradition in August 2013 (Hermkens, Noorlander & others, 2013; Gehring, Starna & Fenton debate surveyed there). Honest presentation: "1613 in Haudenosaunee tradition, recorded in wampum; the paper document's authenticity is debated by scholars." Do not present either side as the whole record.
• Covenant Chain (from 1677). Documented series of Anglo-Haudenosaunee councils and agreements with the British, renewed by "polishing the chain" (Richter, 1992, The Ordeal of the Longhouse).
• Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) and Treaty of Harmar / Fort Harmar (1789). Early U.S.–Six Nations treaties listed by Onondaga Nation (2010) among the earliest treaties the Haudenosaunee hold with the United States.
• Treaty of Canandaigua (11 November 1794). Parties: the United States (agent Timothy Pickering) and the Six Nations. From the treaty text: Article I, "Peace and friendship are hereby firmly established, and shall be perpetual"; Article II, the United States acknowledges the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga reservations as their property, will "never claim the same, nor disturb them… in the free use and enjoyment thereof," the lands to remain theirs until they choose to sell to the United States; Article III bounds Seneca land (Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794, transcription, New York State Museum / National Archives copy; Onondaga Nation, n.d., treaty text page). Documented fact: the treaty is commemorated annually on 11 November, and the U.S. Department of Justice reaffirmed its continued validity in a 2020-era amicus filing cited by Onondaga Nation (Onondaga Nation, 2010, updated). The annual federal cloth payment under the treaty is a matter of public record in nation and press accounts.

Writings and Record Systems

• Wampum as record. Belts and strings of shell beads (purple quahog and white whelk) record agreements, titles and council proceedings and are "read" by designated keepers; the Two Row belt and the Hiawatha belt (recording the union of the five nations) are the best-known examples in published sources (Fenton, 1998; Onondaga Nation, n.d.). Belts are held by the nations, notably at Onondaga, and some are in museum collections — a provenance and repatriation issue nation sources raise explicitly.
• Published Great Law texts. Parker's 1916 Constitution of the Five Nations published a Seneca version recorded from oral recitation; it is a published witness, not the only or authoritative version — nation governments hold their own.
• Print literacy. Haudenosaunee authors have a long print tradition, from 19th-century Mohawk-language publications to modern nation newspapers; specific titles should be added only after cultural review.

Sources

• Fenton, William N. (1998). The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Herrick, James W. (1995). Iroquois Medical Botany. Syracuse University Press.
• Journal of Early American History (2013). Special issue on the Two Row Wampum tradition, Vol. 3.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Morgan, Lewis Henry (1851). League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.
• Mt. Pleasant, Jane (2006). "The Science behind the Three Sisters Mound System." In Histories of Maize. Academic Press.
• Onondaga Nation (n.d.). "The Canandaigua Treaty of 1794" and Haudenosaunee Confederacy pages. onondaganation.org.
• Onondaga Nation (2010). "The Haudenosaunee Confederacy: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Passports." onondaganation.org.
• Parker, Arthur C. (1910). Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants. New York State Museum.
• Parker, Arthur C. (1916). The Constitution of the Five Nations. New York State Museum Bulletin 184.
• Richter, Daniel K. (1992). The Ordeal of the Longhouse. University of North Carolina Press.
• Tooker, Elisabeth (1988). "The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League." Ethnohistory 35(4).
• Treaty of Canandaigua (1794). Text / transcription, New York State Museum (National Archives copy).
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Iroquoian entries. Accessed 2026.
• U.S. Congress (1988). H.Con.Res. 331, 100th Congress.

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Confederacy formation date — tradition vs. a wide scholarly range; (2) degree of constitutional influence — congressional acknowledgment vs. historians' debate; (3) current per-language speaker totals — deliberately not given, sources conflict.

Cherokee / Tsalagi

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Hopewell (28 November 1785). The first U.S.–Cherokee treaty. Parties: the United States and "all the Cherokees." From the text: the Cherokee acknowledged U.S. protection (Art. III) and Article IV allotted a boundary for Cherokee hunting grounds (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785, in Kappler, 1904, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II; the Hopewell date is given as 20/28 November in different secondary records — the treaty text in Kappler is dated 28 November 1785, and the 20 November date appearing in Latimer v. Poteet, 39 U.S. 4 (1840), is a flagged discrepancy; see Weakest points).
• Treaty of Holston (2 July 1791). Parties: the United States and the Cherokee Nation. It redrew the Hopewell boundary, provided for a marked boundary surveyed by commissioners of both parties, and — in the treaty's own assimilation-era language — U.S. provision of farming implements and advice (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1791, Kappler, Vol. II; Cherokee Nation history timeline, n.d.).
• A long series of cession treaties (1804–1819 etc.) progressively reduced the eastern homeland; they are listed in Kappler, Vol. II, and should be enumerated on the site only from that record.
• Treaty of New Echota (29 December 1835) — and its contested ratification. Documented facts: signed at New Echota by a minority "Treaty Party" (including Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot) without authorisation from Principal Chief John Ross or the Cherokee National Council; it purported to cede all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million and land in Indian Territory. The overwhelming majority opposed it — a protest petition bearing, by published counts, more than 15,000 Cherokee names was presented to Congress — yet the U.S. Senate ratified it in May 1836 by one vote (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1835, Kappler, Vol. II; Perdue & Green, 2007, The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears; Cherokee Nation history materials). The forced removal of 1838–39 under the Indian Removal Act followed; Cherokee and U.S. sources alike record that more than 4,000 Cherokee died — published estimates vary, commonly 4,000–6,000 of roughly 16,000 removed, and the figure is debated (Thornton, 1984, "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears," Ethnohistory; National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail). Note also Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), in which the Supreme Court held Georgia law had no force in Cherokee territory — a documented holding that Georgia and the federal executive did not enforce.

Writings

• The Cherokee syllabary — Sequoyah, completed 1821. Documented fact: Sequoyah (also rendered George Gist / Guess in English sources), a Cherokee silversmith who did not read English, completed a syllabary of 85 characters (in its standard printed form), each representing a syllable of Cherokee, after roughly twelve years of work; the Cherokee National Council adopted it in 1825 (Walker & Sarbaugh, 1993, "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary," Ethnohistory 40(1); Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Published accounts report rapid, widespread literacy following adoption; precise literacy percentages sometimes quoted are not reliably documented and are not given here.
• Cherokee Phoenix (from 21 February 1828). The first Native American newspaper, bilingual Cherokee/English, printed at New Echota with type cast for the syllabary, edited by Elias Boudinot (Cherokee Phoenix, 1828–; Library of Congress, newspaper directory; Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Its press was seized by the Georgia Guard in 1835 (documented in Perdue, ed., 1983, Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot).
• What survives, where. Syllabary manuscripts, laws and newspapers are held by, among others, the Cherokee Nation, the Museum of the Cherokee People (Cherokee, NC), the Gilcrease Museum, and the Newberry Library; the Cherokee Phoenix continues today as the Cherokee Nation's newspaper (Cherokee Nation, n.d.).

Sources

• Cherokee Nation (n.d.). History, Language Department, and Cherokee Phoenix pages. cherokee.org.
• Cherokee Preservation Foundation (2005– ). Cherokee language survey reporting, via Eastern Band sources.
• Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827). Published text.
• Gilbert, William H. (1943). The Eastern Cherokees. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 133.
• Hill, Sarah H. (1997). Weaving New Worlds. University of North Carolina Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785; 1791; 1835.
• McLoughlin, William G. (1986). Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Montgomery-Anderson, Brad (2015). Cherokee Reference Grammar. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Mooney, James (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. 19th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology.
• Perdue, Theda, ed. (1983). Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. University of Tennessee Press.
• Perdue, Theda & Green, Michael D. (2007). The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. Viking / Penguin.
• Thornton, Russell (1984). "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate." Ethnohistory 31(4).
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Cherokee entry. Accessed 2026.
• Walker, Willard & Sarbaugh, James (1993). "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary." Ethnohistory 40(1).
• Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Hopewell signing date, 20 vs. 28 November 1785, in different records; (2) Trail of Tears death toll — published range 4,000–6,000, no exact count exists; (3) current fluent-speaker totals — survey methods differ between Oklahoma and North Carolina counts; (4) post-syllabary literacy rates — widely repeated, poorly documented.

Anishinaabe / Ojibwe

Treaties Particular to Them

All four treaties below are U.S.–Ojibwe (Chippewa) treaties printed in Kappler, Vol. II, and summarised from the treaty record by GLIFWC and the 1854 Treaty Authority. In Canada, Anishinaabe nations are also parties to the Robinson Treaties (1850) and the Williams Treaties (1923) and numbered treaties — those deserve their own enumeration from Crown-Indigenous Relations sources and are flagged as a gap here rather than summarised from memory.

• Treaty of Washington (3 March 1836) — Ottawa and Chippewa. Ceded lands in Michigan's Lower Peninsula and eastern Upper Peninsula; Article 13 reserved fishing rights at the places of fishery — rights later affirmed for 1836-cession waters in United States v. Michigan, 471 F. Supp. 192 (W.D. Mich. 1979) (GLIFWC, "Cases Affirming Treaty Rights," n.d.).
• Treaty of St. Peters (29 July 1837) — Chippewa. The "Pine Tree Treaty": ceded pine lands in present Wisconsin/Minnesota; Article 5 expressly reserved "the privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice, upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded… during the pleasure of the President" (treaty text, Kappler, Vol. II). Affirmed as surviving in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172 (1999).
• Treaty of La Pointe (4 October 1842) — Chippewa. The "Copper Treaty": ceded mineral lands of the western Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior shore; Article II reserved hunting and "the usual privileges of occupancy" until required to remove by the President — removal was never lawfully effected for the Wisconsin bands (treaty text, Kappler, Vol. II; GLIFWC, n.d.).
• Treaty of La Pointe (30 September 1854) — Chippewa of Lake Superior and the Mississippi. Established permanent reservations in the homeland (e.g., Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac Courte Oreilles, Fond du Lac), ending the removal policy that had produced the Sandy Lake disaster of 1850, in which — by Minnesota Historical Society / GLIFWC accounts — about 400 Ojibwe died after annuity payments were moved to Sandy Lake (a published figure; exact toll is debated). Article 11 reserved hunting and fishing rights in the ceded territory for signatory bands resident there (treaty text; 1854 Treaty Authority, Understanding Chippewa Treaty Rights, 2020 ed.).
• The Voigt decision (1983). Lac Courte Oreilles Band v. Voigt, 700 F.2d 341 (7th Cir. 1983): held that the usufructuary rights reserved in the 1837 and 1842 treaties were not extinguished by the 1850 removal order or the 1854 treaty, and pre-empt unilateral state regulation; the U.S. Supreme Court declined review (GLIFWC, n.d.; Nesper, 2002, "Following a Micmac into Wisconsin's 'Boat Wars'" / and Nesper in American Indian Quarterly retrospective on 25 years of Ojibwe treaty rights). Later phases set harvest frameworks; intertribal management is exercised through GLIFWC (founded 1984 by the Voigt tribes).

Writings and Record Systems

• Birchbark scrolls (wiigwaasabak). Documented fact: Anishinaabe keepers recorded pictographic mnemonic records — migration charts, songs, maps and society records — incised on birchbark scrolls, some scrolls joining multiple bark sheets to many feet in length; examples are held by museums including the Smithsonian, and many remain in community keeping (Densmore, 1929; Hoffman, 1891 — see restriction note above; Dewdney, 1975, The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway, University of Toronto Press). Restitution and restricted-access questions attach to museum-held scrolls and are flagged for cultural review.
• Petroglyphs / pictographs at teaching rocks are documented in the archaeological literature; their locations and meanings are in part community-restricted and are not detailed here.
• Print. William W. Warren's History of the Ojibway People (written 1850s, published 1885, Minnesota Historical Society) is a foundational Indigenous-authored history, drawn from oral tradition.

Sources

• 1854 Treaty Authority (2020). Understanding Chippewa Treaty Rights in Minnesota's 1854 Ceded Territory.
• Adney, Edwin Tappan & Chapelle, Howard I. (1964). The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. Smithsonian Institution.
• Benton-Banai, Edward (1988). The Mishomis Book. Red School House / University of Minnesota Press reissue.
• Densmore, Frances (1928). Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology.
• Densmore, Frances (1929). Chippewa Customs. BAE Bulletin 86.
• Dewdney, Selwyn (1975). The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway. University of Toronto Press.
• Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) (n.d.). "Cases Affirming Treaty Rights"; Voigt Task Force pages. glifwc.org.
• Hoffman, Walter J. (1891). "The Midewiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa." BAE 7th Annual Report.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Treaties of 1836, 1837, 1842, 1854.
• Martin, Susan R. (1999). Wonderful Power. Wayne State University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Nesper, Larry (2002). The Walleye War. University of Nebraska Press.
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Ojibwe entries. Accessed 2026.
• Valentine, J. Randolph (2001). Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar. University of Toronto Press.
• Vennum, Thomas Jr. (1988). Wild Rice and the Ojibway People. Minnesota Historical Society Press.
• Warren, William W. (1885). History of the Ojibway People. Minnesota Historical Society.
• Lac Courte Oreilles Band v. Voigt, 700 F.2d 341 (7th Cir. 1983); Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band, 526 U.S. 172 (1999); United States v. Michigan, 471 F. Supp. 192 (1979).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Sandy Lake death toll (~400) — published but not exactly countable; (2) Old Copper Complex attribution — predates documented Ojibwe presence, must not be claimed as simply Ojibwe; (3) speaker totals — not given, sources conflict; (4) Canadian Anishinaabe treaties (Robinson, Williams) listed but not yet detailed from primary texts.

Lakota & Dakota (Oceti Sakowin)

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Fort Laramie (17 September 1851). Parties: the United States and the Sioux (Dakota/Lakota/Nakota), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and others. It defined territorial boundaries between the peoples, provided for U.S. roads and posts, and promised annuities (Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, Kappler, Vol. II). It did not cede Sioux land.
• Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) — the Sioux Treaty. Signed at Fort Laramie through spring–November 1868, following Red Cloud's War. From the text: Article 2 established the Great Sioux Reservation — all of present South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills — as land "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians"; Article 16 designated country north of the North Platte and east of the Bighorn summits as unceded Indian territory closed to white settlement or passage without Sioux consent; Article 12 provided that no future cession would be valid without signatures of at least three-fourths of all adult male Indians occupying or interested in the reservation (Treaty with the Sioux, 1868, Kappler, Vol. II; Smithsonian Magazine / National Museum of the American Indian, "Nation to Nation," Cutlip, 2018).
• The Black Hills taking (1876–1877). Documented facts: gold was confirmed in the Black Hills by the 1874 Custer expedition; the U.S. failed to purchase the Hills; an 1876 agreement obtained signatures from roughly 10% of adult Sioux men — far below Article 12's three-fourths requirement — and Congress enacted the cession by the Act of 28 February 1877 (sources: treaty scholarship surveyed in Lazarus, 1991, Black Hills/White Justice, HarperCollins; figures for the 10% signature share are those used by the Supreme Court's recitation and the Lakota Times summary of the case — treat as the court's record, not an independent count).
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (30 June 1980). The Supreme Court held the 1877 act effected a taking of the Black Hills (and other lands) without just compensation, in breach of the 1868 treaty, and upheld an award of the 1877 value plus 5% interest from 1877. The dollar figures are reported inconsistently in secondary sources — $15.5 million, $17.1 million and $17.5 million all appear for the principal in reputable summaries, with interest bringing the 1980 total to about $122 million (compare Smithsonian, 2018: "more than $100 million"; court text, 448 U.S. 371). This entry therefore states "about $122 million in 1980" and flags the principal figure for verification against the slip opinion before publication. Documented fact: the Sioux nations have refused to accept the money, maintaining the Black Hills were not for sale; the fund, with interest, has been reported at over $1 billion (figures dated 2011 in secondary sources; current value requires a fresh Bureau of Trust Funds source — flagged).
• Later agreements (1889) divided the Great Sioux Reservation into the present smaller reservations (Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brulé, Crow Creek) (Act of 2 March 1889; DeMallie, 2001).

Writings and Record Systems

• Winter counts (waniyetu wowapi — spelling as printed in OSEU materials). Documented fact: designated keepers painted one pictograph per year on hides (later cloth/paper), each image naming the year by a memorable event, the sequence serving as a chronological framework for oral history (Smithsonian Institution, Lakota Winter Counts online exhibit, National Museum of the American Indian / National Anthropological Archives; Greene & Thornton, eds., 2007, The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian, University of Nebraska Press). Named counts include those of Battiste Good, Lone Dog, Flame, and American Horse; originals are held at the Smithsonian and other museums, with copies and community editions in tribal keeping — provenance varies by count and is flagged per-item for review.
• Pictography on hides, tipis and ledger art (post-1870s, on paper) is documented in Smithsonian collections.
• Print and scholarship. Dakota-language print begins with mission presses and Riggs (1852); foundational Indigenous-authored works include Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa, Dakota) and Ella Deloria (Yankton Dakota), whose Dakota Texts (1932) and ethnographic work are standard scholarly sources.

Sources

• Aktá Lakota Museum & Cultural Center (n.d.). "Oceti Sakowin: Seven Council Fires." akta lakota.stjo.org.
• Black Elk / Brown, Joseph Epes (1953). The Sacred Pipe. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Cutlip, Kimbra (2018). "In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty. The U.S. Broke It…" Smithsonian Magazine / NMAI.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). "Sioux until 1850." Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13. Smithsonian Institution.
• Greene, Candace S. & Thornton, Russell, eds. (2007). The Year the Stars Fell. University of Nebraska Press / Smithsonian.
• Isenberg, Andrew C. (2000). The Destruction of the Bison. Cambridge University Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Fort Laramie Treaties, 1851 and 1868.
• Lazarus, Edward (1991). Black Hills/White Justice. HarperCollins.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Moerman, Daniel E. (1998). Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press.
• Riggs, Stephen R. (1852). Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language. Smithsonian Institution.
• South Dakota Department of Education (2016–2024 drafts). Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and Standards (OSEU).
• Ullrich, Jan F. (2008). New Lakota Dictionary. Lakota Language Consortium.
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Lakota, Dakota entries. Accessed 2026.
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) The 1980 award principal — $15.5M / $17.1M / $17.5M in different reputable summaries; verify against 448 U.S. 371 before publication; (2) current trust-fund value ("over $1 billion" is a 2011-era secondary figure); (3) speaker totals deliberately omitted; (4) the 1876 "10% of adult men" signature figure comes from the litigation record, not an independent census.

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