THE CHICAGO TREATY OF 1833
With Introduction and Notes by Milo M. Quaife
The Chicago Treaty of 1833, with the negotiating of which the following documents deal, was an event of considerable importance, particularly in the history of Illinois and Wisconsin. From the first advent of the white man in this region the Potawatomi tribe of Indians had made its home in some portion of the territory adjacent to Lake Michigan. By the Chicago Treaty of 1833 the Potawatomi and allied tribes, the Chippewa and Ottawa, at length agreed definitely to leave this region and find a new home beyond the Mississippi. To the whites was surrendered their title to some 5,000,000 acres of fertile land in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, embracing the tract between Lake Michigan and Rock River and extending northward from an east and west line drawn through the southernmost point of Lake Michigan.
The circumstances attending the negotiation of the treaty were typical, probably, of those of Indian treaties generally in the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet two or three facts give to this treaty a somewhat special degree of interest. One is that we have left to us fuller and better descriptions of the negotiation of the treaty than is commonly the case. Another and more important one is that a larger sum of money was distributed in the form of gratuities more or less disguised, to facilitate the conduct of the negotiations. It is with this phase of the subject that the documents here presented deal. So far as known, no student of American history has ever seriously set himself the task of illuminating the subject of the process whereby the American government secured from the red man, in successive treaties, title
to the greater portion of the land of continental United States.[112] A comprehensive study of this subject would reveal much of interest and value; it would be certain, too, to disclose much of a nature far from flattering to the American government and nation. That the Chicago Treaty of 1833 would afford some material of this sort for the construction of the narrative, it requires no hardihood to affirm. Charges of improper influences and conduct in connection with the framing of the treaty began to be made as soon as it was negotiated. Some of them, doubtless, were irresponsible and unfounded, but there is reason for supposing that this was far from being true with respect to all of them. The letter of Governor Porter is preserved in the Burton Library at Detroit, and acknowledgment is due to Mr. Burton for the copy we present. The charges against Porter are copied from a contemporary broadside preserved among the Martin manuscripts in the Wisconsin Historical Library. The two documents go hand in hand, for it is evident that the charges which Porter sought in his letter to Jackson to refute are identical with those stated in the broadside, although the latter seems not to contain all the material which had been submitted to Jackson and which was referred by him to Porter to answer. Readers who may be interested in pursuing the subject further may find a discussion of the Chicago Treaty of 1833 in the present editor’s Chicago and the Old Northwest 1673-1835, 353-66.
CHARGES PREFERRED AGAINST GEORGE B. PORTER
Detroit, December 12, 1833.
To Hon. the Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs in the U. S. Senate
The following are the charges and specifications preferred against George B. Porter, Governor of Michigan Territory, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs: