The 1836 Treaty of Washington

[A version of this story ran in the September, 2021 Marquette Monthly]

As the fall colors emerge, celebrate the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Chocolay Bayou Nature Preserve. With help from more than 150 local individuals, organizations, and businesses, the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy (UPLC) acquired this thirteen-acre wetland property in 2016. Located near the Michigan Welcome Center on U.S. 41, just southeast of Marquette, along the North Country National Scenic Trail and Iron Ore Heritage Trail, the Chocolay Bayou has become a favorite place for watching migrating birds and other wildlife, looking for wildflowers, and enjoying an easy stroll in a peaceful, wooded setting. The Chocolay Bayou is also accessible by kayak and canoe, as the chocolate-hued Chocolay River connects to Lake Superior.

As a nonprofit land conservancy, UPLC protects wilderness throughout the Upper Peninsula. UPLC also promotes knowledge of the history of that land. Visitors to the Chocolay Bayou Nature Preserve can enjoy the site’s natural beauty while contemplating the 1836 Treaty of Washington as one example of how Native lands were taken as the United States expanded west.

In 1836, the Chocolay River became the border between the United States and Ojibwe land in the Upper Peninsula. According to the Treaty of Washington, signed March 28 and ratified by Congress May 27, Ojibwe and Odawa leaders ceded approximately 13.8 million acres in the western lower peninsula and eastern Upper Peninsula, approximately 40% of the land area that is now Michigan. Under the terms of this treaty, east of the Chocolay River became U.S. property, and west of the river remained unceded Ojibwe territory.

The American Fur Company, founded by John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), extended credit to Native hunters in the northern Great Lakes each fall, requiring payment in furs in the spring. By the 1830s, overharvesting diminished furbearing species in the region. Astor himself pulled out of the Great Lakes fur trade. Ramsay Crooks (1787-1859) took control of the northern part of the company. Particularly poor fur harvests in 1833 and 1834 left many Native families owing large debts to the American Fur Company.

Elbert Herring (1777-1876), Commissioner of Indian Affairs under Secretary of War Lewis Cass (1782-1866), knew the debts held by Anishinaabe people could be used as leverage to acquire Native land. He wrote to Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864), then working as Indian Agent at Mackinac Island, telling him to travel to the lower peninsula to pursue the matter. Schoolcraft wrote back that the events of the past several years had prepared Native people to sell their land.

Anishinaabe people were very much aware of the threat of violent removal from their territories without compensation because of recent actions against their traditional enemies, the Sauk. In 1832, a Sauk leader named Black Hawk refused to leave territory in southern Wisconsin. United States troops and Dakota warriors launched an assault against Black Hawk that killed 1,300 of his people.

The United States government invited a select group of Ojibwe men from the Upper Peninsula and Odawa men from lower Michigan to negotiate the treaty in the spring of 1836. This was an irregular move, as important treaty councils were usually held near the concerned lands and interested communities so many people could give their opinions. Anishinaabe treaty decisions were traditionally made by respected men and women, and the exclusion of women contradicted custom. Meeting in Washington, D.C. cut off the usual forms of community input.

Holding treaty negotiations in Washington, D.C. was also a way to intimidate the Ojibwe and Odawa diplomats. President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) made no secret of his antipathy towards Native Americans. The populist political campaign that won him the presidency made much of his reputation as an Indian fighter, earned in brutal battles against Native people in the Southeast. After an 1814 battle, Jackson’s troops cut off noses to count their victims and made horse bridle reins from skins of dead Native people. His Native contemporaries gave Jackson the name Sharp Knife. Jackson’s pro-removal policies were part of his political success.

The removal program known as the Trail of Tears displaced as many as 100,000 Native Americans in the southeastern United States between 1831 and 1850, mostly Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Muscogee (Creek) people. Surely the message to the Great Lakes Anishinaabe diplomats that came to Washington in 1836 was that they were now under the control of an American president who would use force to take their lands if they refused sell.

Schoolcraft, who led negotiations for the U.S. government, was uniquely positioned to broker a treaty concerning the area that would soon become the state of Michigan. His wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800-1842), also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay ‘Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky,’ was the daughter of Irish fur trader John Johnston (1762-1828) and Ozhaguscodaywayquay ‘Woman of the Green Glen’ or Susan Johnston (circa 1775-1840), herself the daughter of the famous Ojibwe warrior and orator Waubojeeg ‘White Fisher’ (circa 1747-1793). Jane Johnston, like her grandfather, was a gifted storyteller. She was also a prolific writer. Schoolcraft lived with his wife’s relatives in Sault Ste. Marie before being reposted at Mackinac Island and knew many of the Upper Peninsula Ojibwe men assembled in Washington. He leveraged these relationships, threatening downstate Odawa that he could make a separate deal with the Ojibwe if they did not go along with the joint treaty.   

The U.S. government bought the land for about 12.5 cents per acre. According to the treaty signed by Schoolcraft and the Anishinaabe delegates, the United States agreed to pay cash and goods upon ratification, provide a cash annuity for twenty years, fund medical care, education, blacksmiths, and agricultural improvement, and to distribute supplies such as tobacco, salt, and fish for twenty years. The government also agreed to pay debts to the American Fur Company and provide agents to help examine claims against Native families. The treaty set aside reservations within the boundaries of the ceded territory. The government said it would establish a voluntary program for removal if Native people should choose to leave the region. Native people retained hunting rights until the land was required for settlement.   

In an extraordinary move, Senate changed the terms of the treaty after it was already signed. The version ratified by Congress made the reservations north of the Straits of Mackinac temporary rather than permanent, gave the government discretion to take back reservations to the south, and eliminated the provision of agents to examine debt claims by the American Fur Company. Removal remained a threat. Without neutral arbiters helping settle debts, the American Fur Company had final authority to determine what people owed. These amendments were due to political infighting within the U.S. government. Senator Hugh White (1773-1840), in charge of the Senate Indian Committee, wanted to block Jackson from gaining loyal followers in patronage positions that could come from permanent reservations.

Ojibwe and Odawa leaders assembled at Mackinac July 12 to 14 accepted the adjusted terms of the treaty. They chose to do so after the American Fur Company threatened to cut off lines of credit, which would have thrown the local economy into chaos and left Native families with mere months to figure out how to survive the upcoming winter.   

Adam Berger