Beschreibung:

INDIAN TREATIES]. An extensive collection of 141 treaties between the United States and many different Indian Tribes. Washington, D.C., 1810-1869. Most folio, various paginations, usually 4-10 pages each, some printed on blue paper. Most in self-wrappers, often string- or ribbon-tied; 42 in individual quarter morocco slipcases. "THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCUMENTS OF OUR NATIONAL DOMAIN" (Eberstadt) "In the field of Americana few aspects of the subject compare in interest and importance with that of the relationship between the whites and the Indians, and the treaties which were the written manifestation of that relationship. These treaties, often the result of the white man's greed for lands and gold are, in effect, the fundamental documents of our national domain" (Edward Eberstadt & Sons, 1940). This extraordinary collection of treaties provides evidence of exactly how frontier settlement and federal policies geared towards land possession resulted in the displacement of the native peoples. Through negotiations with the various tribes, the changing attitude towards the Indians is displayed: first they are held as sovereign nations, then as undeclared enemies, and finally as subject people. The practice of the U.S. government establishing treaties with the Indians began in 1778 and continued for nearly a century. During this period about 370 treaties were negotiated, meaning that the present collection comprises as much as one-third of the total (although many treaties were never separately printed). Treaty-making with the Indians was abandoned with an act of Congress dated March 3, 1871 when the U.S. government ceased to regard tribes as sovereign nations. Thereafter the term "agreement" was substitued for treaty. The bulk of the treaties come on the heels of the Mexican War, and later the Civil War, which William Goetzmann suggests is not coincidental. "The Mexican War presented new opportunities for exploration in the Southwest, and the army explorers who went out as a result of the conflict returned with new data, and new points of view concerning the West that shaped national policy for years to come." Indeed, many of the treaties here follow the Mexican War and reflect this new policy: "Preliminary to any conflict with Mexico was the necessity for (1) quieting the Indian tribes; (2) locating supply routes to the West; (3) generally reconnoitering the possible battleground to be contested by the two countries" (Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West , Austin, 1993, p. 250). After the Civil War, the United States Army again faced West, and a horde of prospectors had flooded there too in search of gold. "With civilization came more population and an increasing demand for transportation, and by 1868 at least three railroad projects and several important wagon roads were underway, pushing out across the plains through the buffalo country and into the mountains. Inevitably they clashed with the Indian, brushing him aside, killing his buffalo, reducing his domain, threatening his very existence. As early as 1866, the great Indian wars had begun and the Army was faced with a new kind of conflict--a guerilla war extending over vast distances and every conceivable kind of terrain... In addition, the Indian was not without allies. The Indian agents of the Interior Department who sold him guns and supplies had a certain cynical appreciation of him, and back in the East, groups of prewar Abolitionists turned from the South to the West with a newfound, vocal interest in the redman" (ibid, p. 390). The 1866 treaty concluded by Dennis Cooley and Elijah Sells with the Cherokee Nation extends them amnesty for joining the Confederate States in the Civil War. This treaty extends to no less than 31 articles, the first of which nullifies the Confederate treaty. Other provisions relate to the abolition of slavery in the Nation, setting up land and election districts, crimes, laws, co