Treaty of Pontotoc

John R. Coffee, negotiator and signer of the contract

The Treaty of Pontotoc (other spelling: Pontituck Creek ) was a land assignment agreement between the Chickasaw and the United States of America . It was signed on October 20, 1832, at the Chickasaw meeting house on Pontotoc Creek in northern Mississippi . The negotiations were conducted on the Chickasaw side by the Indian tribal leaders of the council; the interests of the United States were represented by John R. Coffee .

With the previous Treaty of Old Town from 1818, the Chickasaw had already withdrawn from their ancestral territory in Tennessee . By concluding the Treaty of Franklin in 1830, the Chickasaw exchanged their settlement area east of the Mississippi River for the allocation of new tribal areas in Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma . In addition to the agreement of a regular maintenance payment to the tribe and the allocation of parcels to its members, one of the contractual conditions stipulated that the contract should only become valid after the acquisition of a suitable area. After the search for new areas by expeditions of the Chickasaw dragged on and the living conditions of the Chickasaw in Mississippi deteriorated significantly due to discrimination and persecution, the Treaty of Pontotoc was concluded to speed up the resettlement of the Indians. In essence, the contract merely repeated the agreements set out in the Franklin contract, and some clauses, such as the amount of the contract, were revised. With the Treaty of Washington of 1834, the Chickasaw exchanged the remaining tribal areas in the region as part of the Indian Removal Act ( Indian Relocation Act ) final against land in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma one. In the course of the Indian resettlement described as the Path of Tears , the Chickasaw left their ancestral territories in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama around 1837 .

literature

Francis Paul Prucha: American Indian Treaties. The History of a Political Anomaly . University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 1997, ISBN 0-520-20895-1 , pp. 174-175.
Arrell M. Gibson: The Chickasaws. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK et al. 1971, ISBN 0-8061-0945-9 ( The Civilization of the American Indian Series 109)

Individual evidence

^ Charles J. Kappler. Washington: United States Government Printing Office , 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1832. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Pontotoc Treaty).
^ Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1818. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Old Town Treaty).
^ Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1830. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Franklin Treaty).
^ Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1834. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Treaty of Washington, 1834).

[1] Charles J. Kappler. Washington: United States Government Printing Office , 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1832. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Pontotoc Treaty).

[2] Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1818. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Old Town Treaty).

[3] Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1830. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Franklin Treaty).

[4] Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904: TREATY WITH THE CHICKASAW, 1834. In: Electronic Publishing Center Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma State University, accessed April 24, 2009 (transcribed from the original text of the Treaty of Washington, 1834).