Treaty of Traverse des Sioux

[1][2] The treaty was instigated by Alexander Ramsey, the first governor of Minnesota Territory, and Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.

They were assisted by territorial Congressional delegate Henry Hastings Sibley and the traders who sought compensation for business losses which appeared on their books as "Indian debts.

An act of the United States Congress passed on March 3, 1847 prohibited annuities, money and goods to be paid to anyone other than heads of families or individuals in all future treaties.

[3][1] Sibley informed Governor Ramsey that he would withhold his support for future land cession treaties, if the Dakota were not "allowed" to pay off their "past debts.

To win over the Dakotas, he directed his traders to go back to awarding credit and giving gifts liberally to reinforce their kinship ties, even if they resulted in short-term losses.

[5] To win over the mixed-blood community, he promised to lobby for the sale of the "half-breed tract" along Lake Pepin, granted to them in the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien.

McLeod reported that after a succession of bad winters, the western bands had suffered from hunger, often bordering on starvation, and were desperate for relief.

[7] Former fur trader Joseph R. Brown recruited his mixed-blood brother-in-law, Gabriel Renville (Tiwakan), to help build support for the treaty among Sisseton and Wahpeton leaders.

Historian Gary Clayton Anderson writes, "Given the circumstances, Renville, in working with Brown, obviously assumed that he was helping his people out of what had become an increasingly unsustainable lifestyle.

"[5] At 5:30 am on June 29, 1851, the treaty commissioners left Fort Snelling on board the steamboat Excelsior, traveling with a large group including newspaper reporters, as well as traders and "mixed-blood" assistants associated with Henry Hastings Sibley.

At signing of the Traverse des Sioux treaty, the assembled chiefs were led to an upright barrel where an old acquaintance of the tribe, Joseph R. Brown, stood.

[11] The US intended the treaties to encourage the Sioux to convert from being nomadic hunters gathers to Anglo European farming, offering them compensation in the transition.

The forced change in lifestyle and the much lower than expected payments from the federal government caused economic suffering and increased social tensions within the tribes.