War of 1812 Era · 1802

Treaty with the Creeks (Fort Wilkinson), 1802

ID T-0023

Date 1802-06-16

Articles 1

Instrument Note

Parties

United States and the Creek Nation

Context

Executed at Fort Wilkinson, Georgia on June 16, 1802. The Creek had resisted major land cessions since the 1790 New York treaty. Georgia had been pressing for Creek cession of the territory between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers. This instrument is the result of that pressure, executed by Colonel Benjamin Hawkins — the U.S. agent to the southern nations who had been present at the Hopewell negotiations seventeen years earlier.

Significance

The Creek ceded the territory between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers — present-day central Georgia. In exchange: an annuity of $3,000 per year for twelve years, specific goods at signing, and U.S. assumption of a Creek debt to traders. The debt assumption mechanism — using treaty consideration to pay off Creek obligations to non-Indian traders — appears here and becomes increasingly common in subsequent cession instruments. The traders' interests were served by the cession; the debt settlement gave them an additional incentive to support treaty negotiations.

Legal Observation

Paying Indian debts to traders as part of cession consideration created a structural alignment: traders who held Creek debts benefited from the cession, and those traders had direct relationships with Creek leaders. The Jefferson administration used the factory trading system to deliberately accumulate Indian debt as a mechanism for inducing land cessions. The practice is documented in Jefferson's own correspondence.

TREATY WITH THE CHOCTAWS. 1801. the mutual confidence and friendship which are hereby acknowledged to subsist between the contracting parties shall be maintained and per- petuated. -Art. Il. The Mingos principal men and warriors of the Chactaw nation of Indians, do hereby give their free consent, that a convenient and durable waggon way may be explored, marked, opened and made under the orders and instructions of the President of the United States, through their lands to commence at the northern extremity of the set- tlements of the Mississippi Territory, and to be extended from thence, by such route as may be selected and surveyed under the authority of the President of the United States, until it shall strike the lands claimed by the Chickasaw nation; and the same shall be and continue for ever, a high-way for the citizens of the United States and the Chactaws; and the said Chactaws shall nominate two discreet men from their nation, who may be employed as assistants, guides or pilots, during the time of laying out and opening the said high-way, or so long as may be deemed expedient, under the direction of the officer charged with this duty, who shall receive a reasonable compensation for their services. Art. III. The two contracting parties covenant and agree that the old line of demarkation heretofore established by and between the officers of his Britannic Majesty and the Chactaw nation, which runs in a parallel direction with the Mississippi river and eastward thereof, shall be retraced and plainly marked, in such way and manner as the President may direct, in the presence of two persons to be appointed by the said nation; and that the said line shall be the boundary between the settlements of the Mississippi Territory and the Chactaw nation. And the said nation does by these presents relinquish to the United States and quit claim for ever, all their right, title and pretension to the land lying between the said line and the Mississippi river, bounded south by the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and north by the Yazoo river, where the said line shall strike the same; and on the part of the commissioners it is agreed, that all persons who may be settled beyond this line, shall be removed within it, on the side towards the Mississippi, together with their slaves, household furniture, tools, materials and stock, and that the cabbins or houses erected by such persons shall be de- molished. Arr. IV. The President of the United States may, at his discretion, proceed to execute the second article of this treaty; and the third arti- cle shall be carried into effect as soon as may be convenient to the go- vernment of the United States, and without unnecessary delay on the one part or the other, of which the President shall be the judge; the Chactaws to be seasonably advised, by order of the President of the United States, of the time when, and the place where, the re-survey and re-marking of the old line referred to in the preceding article, will be commenced. Arr. V. The commissioners of the United States, for and in consi- deration of the foregoing concessions on the part of the Chactaw nation, and in full satisfaction for the same, do-give and deliver to the Mingos, chiefs and warriors of the said nation, at the signing of these presents, the value of two thousand dollars in goods and merchandise, nett cost of Philadelphia, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged ; and they further engage to give three sets of blacksmith's tools to the said nation. Arr. VI. This treaty shall take effect and be obligatory on the con- tracting parties, so soon as the same shall be ratified by the President to be made through Indian lands. Boundary. Indians to be notified of the time, &c. of ree survey. ed to the In- dians, &c. Treaty, when to take effect. June 16, 1802. Proclamation, Jan. 11, 1803. Cession of ter- ritory to U. S.

Source: U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII. Edited by Richard Peters, Esq. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846. Reprinted by Dennis & Co., Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., 1962. Source lines 6953–7060.