Treaty of the Chickasaw Council House (Chickasaw)

Not to be confused with Treaty of the Chickasaw Council House (Cherokee)

The Treaty of the Chickasaw Council House (Chickasaw) was signed September 20, 1816 between people of the Chickasaw nation and United States Indian agents.[1][2] The negotiations were held at George Colbert's house, which was a compromise between Jackson, who wanted the negotiations to be in Davidson County, Tennessee, and the nations wanted the discussion to take place in their home villages.[3]

The treaty ceded land in present-day middle Tennessee and Alabama.[1] The American commissioners were Andrew Jackson, David Meriwether, and Jesse Franklin.[4] Special land grants were made to George Colbert and Levi Colbert, Chickasaw leaders whose cooperation was essential to the Americans.[5] The reserve for George Colbert was located "in west Lauderdale County" and "covered several miles of riverfront, rich alluvial bottoms, and the north end of his ferry".[6]

John Rhea, once and future U.S. Representative from Tennessee, wrote to president James Madison, reporting "On last friday was concluded a treaty by the Commissioners of the United States and Chiefs principal men and Wariors of the Chickasaw nation, by which treaty, some reservations excepted, is ceded to the United States, the right & claim of the Chickasaw nation to all the lands by them claimed on the north side of Tennessee river, and also of and to all the lands by them claimed East of a line beginning at the mouth of Covy Creek on South side of Tennessee river—thence up said Creek and one of its branches thence to Gains’s road, with it to the Cotton Gin port, thence down the West bank of the Tombigby river to the Choctaw boundary, with some small reservations of land, and stipulation for payments for improvements on either side Tennessee river...a vast tract of Country is disencumbered and freed from Indian claim, and will soon be covered with Citizens of the United States from the southern boundary of Tennessee State to Mobille".[7]

Historians have also argued that outright bribes, such as US$4,500 (equivalent to $94,647 in 2025) paid to Levi Colbert in 1818, made the treaty possible.[8] Current scholarship asserts that the site of the council house was the home of George Colbert, located near present day Tupelo, Mississippi, which researchers believe hosted the Convention of Southern Tribes, "where Andrew Jackson met with over 75 headmen from the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Choctaw nations, including the famous Cherokee leader Sequoyah and the Choctaw chiefs Pushmataha and Mushulatubbee".[9] The house was constructed beginning around 1804, and served as the Chickasaw council house from about 1814 to 1821, and was replaced in 1850 by what was called the Walker House.[10]

Several long-time Andrew Jackson affiliates were among the Cypress Land Company's seven founding trustees (Thomas Bibb, John Childress, John Coffee, James Jackson, John McKinley, Dabney Morriss, and Leroy Pope), which owned, platted, and marketed the town of Florence where Jackson's Military Road crossed the Tennessee.[11] (On March 3, 1837, Jackson's last full day in office as President of the United States he appointed McKinley and his lifelong friend and former U.S. Senator William Smith to be Associate Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.)[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Cession 80". digitreaties.org. Retrieved 2026-02-09.
  2. ^ Kappler, Charles J. "The Avalon Project : Treaty With the Chickasaw : 1816". avalon.law.yale.edu. Retrieved 2026-02-09.
  3. ^ Rice (1975a), p. 4.
  4. ^ Atkinson (2010), p. 205.
  5. ^ Atkinson (2010), p. 206.
  6. ^ Rice (1975a), p. 5.
  7. ^ "John Rhea to James Madison". Founders Online. U.S. National Archives. September 24, 1816. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Presidential Series, vol. 11, 1 May 1816–3 March 1817, ed. J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, Katharine E. Harbury, and Anne Mandeville Colony. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020, pp. 400–402.]
  8. ^ Atkinson (2010), p. 207.
  9. ^ Doherty (2022), pp. ii, 64–65.
  10. ^ Babb, Richard (June 20, 2015). "Before us, the Chickasaw: Their history is often overlooked in the homeland". Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Retrieved 2026-02-09.
  11. ^ a b Brown, Steven P. (October 12, 2012). John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court: Circuit Riding in the Old Southwest. University of Alabama Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-8173-1771-3.

Sources

Further reading

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