Indigenous · History Classes · Grades 10–13, College & University

The Peoples at Depth I: Haudenosaunee, Cherokee, Anishinaabe, Lakota/Dakota

History Class · Level band: Grades 10–13 · College · University

English edition — the language editions of the history classes are outstanding and will follow the site’s translation pattern; none is fabricated here.

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy)

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = supported by a treaty text, court record, or published scholarship cited in Sources. Tradition — the people's own account = Haudenosaunee oral tradition / nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = a point scholars dispute; the range or dispute is stated, not resolved here. No ceremonial instructions are given. Community-restricted knowledge is named only as restricted, or omitted.

The Haudenosaunee — "People of the Longhouse" in the constituent languages, as nation sources render the name — are a confederacy originally of five nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, joined by Tuscarora in the early 18th century as the sixth nation (Onondaga Nation, n.d., "Haudenosaunee Confederacy"; Britannica, "Iroquois Confederacy"). Onondaga remains the confederacy's capital and keeper of the central council fire in nation accounts (Onondaga Nation, n.d.).

Language

• Family. The Haudenosaunee languages — Mohawk (Kanien'kéha), Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora — belong to the Northern Iroquoian branch of the Iroquoian language family (Mithun, 1999, The Languages of Native North America; UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, entries for Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora). Language names in this paragraph are quoted as printed in those linguistic sources; no words have been reconstructed here.
• Status today. UNESCO's Atlas classifies the Haudenosaunee languages as endangered to severely endangered, with Mohawk the most widely taught of the group (UNESCO Atlas, accessed 2026). Speaker counts are debated and date quickly — census and Atlas figures differ by community and by whether they count first-language or all speakers — so this entry gives no single total. That is a flagged gap for cultural review (see INDEX.md).
• Revival. Documented revival work includes Mohawk immersion schooling at Kahnawà:ke and Akwesasne and university programmes such as the Onondaga Language program; nation and school sources describe immersion as the central strategy (see e.g. Kahnawà:ke Survival School / Kanien'keháka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center publications; Hill, 2017, reporting on Mohawk revitalisation). Writing is in Latin-based orthographies developed community by community, with diacritics for nasal vowels and length differing by nation (Mithun, 1999).

Traditions

• Governance — the Great Law of Peace. Tradition — the people's own account: the confederacy was formed when the Peacemaker, with Hiawatha (Aionwatha), brought the Great Law of Peace — Gayanashagowa in Onondaga Nation's spelling — to the warring five nations (Onondaga Nation, n.d.). Documented fact: the Great Law is a functioning constitution: clan mothers nominate and can remove chiefs (hoyaneh), decisions are by consensus in council, and clans cross-cut the nations (Parker, 1916, The Constitution of the Five Nations, a published Seneca-recorded text of the Great Law; Fenton, 1998, The Great Law and the Longhouse). Debated: the formation date. Haudenosaunee tradition places it more than 1,000 years ago (Onondaga Nation, n.d.); scholarly proposals range widely, including 1142 and the mid-15th century (surveyed in Fenton, 1998). This entry does not settle the date.
• Claim to handle with care: a 1987–88 U.S. congressional resolution (H.Con.Res. 331, 100th Congress) acknowledged Haudenosaunee influence as one contribution to U.S. constitutional thinking. Historians debate the degree of direct influence (Tooker, 1988, "The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League," Ethnohistory). Present it as "acknowledged by Congress; extent debated by historians," not as settled sole authorship.
• Seasonal and social round, at a high level only. Published ethnography describes a year organised around planting, green-corn and harvest thanksgivings, midwinter observances, hunting, and lacrosse as a long-standing Haudenosaunee game (Fenton, 1998; Britannica, "Iroquois"). The content of longhouse ceremonies is community knowledge: it exists, it is restricted, and it is not described here.
• Matrilineal kinship. Documented fact: descent and clan membership are matrilineal, longhouse households were centred on women, and women controlled agricultural land use and distribution in the classic ethnographic record (Morgan, 1851, League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee; Fenton, 1998).

Treaties Particular to Them

• Two Row Wampum — Guswenta / Kaswentha (1613, as dated in Haudenosaunee tradition). Tradition and nation position: an agreement with the Dutch in 1613 establishing two parallel paths — a Haudenosaunee canoe and a European ship — mutual respect and non-interference in each other's laws and ways (Onondaga Nation, 2010, "The Haudenosaunee Confederacy: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Passports"; Onondaga Nation, n.d., Guswenta). The agreement is recorded in wampum and oral tradition. Debated — documentary question: scholars dispute the authenticity and date of a surviving written document purporting to record a 1613 Tawagonshi treaty; the Journal of Early American History devoted a special issue to the Two Row tradition in August 2013 (Hermkens, Noorlander & others, 2013; Gehring, Starna & Fenton debate surveyed there). Honest presentation: "1613 in Haudenosaunee tradition, recorded in wampum; the paper document's authenticity is debated by scholars." Do not present either side as the whole record.
• Covenant Chain (from 1677). Documented series of Anglo-Haudenosaunee councils and agreements with the British, renewed by "polishing the chain" (Richter, 1992, The Ordeal of the Longhouse).
• Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) and Treaty of Harmar / Fort Harmar (1789). Early U.S.–Six Nations treaties listed by Onondaga Nation (2010) among the earliest treaties the Haudenosaunee hold with the United States.
• Treaty of Canandaigua (11 November 1794). Parties: the United States (agent Timothy Pickering) and the Six Nations. From the treaty text: Article I, "Peace and friendship are hereby firmly established, and shall be perpetual"; Article II, the United States acknowledges the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga reservations as their property, will "never claim the same, nor disturb them… in the free use and enjoyment thereof," the lands to remain theirs until they choose to sell to the United States; Article III bounds Seneca land (Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794, transcription, New York State Museum / National Archives copy; Onondaga Nation, n.d., treaty text page). Documented fact: the treaty is commemorated annually on 11 November, and the U.S. Department of Justice reaffirmed its continued validity in a 2020-era amicus filing cited by Onondaga Nation (Onondaga Nation, 2010, updated). The annual federal cloth payment under the treaty is a matter of public record in nation and press accounts.

Writings and Record Systems

• Wampum as record. Belts and strings of shell beads (purple quahog and white whelk) record agreements, titles and council proceedings and are "read" by designated keepers; the Two Row belt and the Hiawatha belt (recording the union of the five nations) are the best-known examples in published sources (Fenton, 1998; Onondaga Nation, n.d.). Belts are held by the nations, notably at Onondaga, and some are in museum collections — a provenance and repatriation issue nation sources raise explicitly.
• Published Great Law texts. Parker's 1916 Constitution of the Five Nations published a Seneca version recorded from oral recitation; it is a published witness, not the only or authoritative version — nation governments hold their own.
• Print literacy. Haudenosaunee authors have a long print tradition, from 19th-century Mohawk-language publications to modern nation newspapers; specific titles should be added only after cultural review.

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Three Sisters agriculture. Documented fact: corn (maize), beans and squash interplanted in mounds — corn provides a stalk for beans, beans fix nitrogen, squash shades soil and suppresses weeds — was the agricultural foundation supporting large settled towns (Parker, 1910, Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants; Mt. Pleasant, 2006, "The Science behind the Three Sisters Mound System," in Staller, Tykot & Benz, eds., Histories of Maize). Women were the principal agriculturalists in the ethnographic record (Parker, 1910).
• Longhouse construction. Bark-covered, pole-frame longhouses housing multiple matrilineally related families, extendable as families grew (Morgan, 1851; Fenton, 1998). A full-scale reconstructed longhouse is interpreted at Ganondagan State Historic Site (New York State Parks).
• Other documented crafts. Corn-husk work, splint and sweetgrass basketry, beadwork (including raised beadwork), and lacrosse-stick making are documented in museum collections (Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Haudenosaunee collections).
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Parker (1910) and Herrick (1977, Iroquois Medical Botany, Syracuse University dissertation / 1995 SUNY Press) catalogue plants historically recorded as used. Caution, to be carried on the site page: a historical record of traditional use is not proof of clinical effectiveness, and this site gives no dosages, preparations or treatment instructions.

Sources

• Fenton, William N. (1998). The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Herrick, James W. (1995). Iroquois Medical Botany. Syracuse University Press.
• Journal of Early American History (2013). Special issue on the Two Row Wampum tradition, Vol. 3.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Morgan, Lewis Henry (1851). League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.
• Mt. Pleasant, Jane (2006). "The Science behind the Three Sisters Mound System." In Histories of Maize. Academic Press.
• Onondaga Nation (n.d.). "The Canandaigua Treaty of 1794" and Haudenosaunee Confederacy pages. onondaganation.org.
• Onondaga Nation (2010). "The Haudenosaunee Confederacy: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Passports." onondaganation.org.
• Parker, Arthur C. (1910). Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants. New York State Museum.
• Parker, Arthur C. (1916). The Constitution of the Five Nations. New York State Museum Bulletin 184.
• Richter, Daniel K. (1992). The Ordeal of the Longhouse. University of North Carolina Press.
• Tooker, Elisabeth (1988). "The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League." Ethnohistory 35(4).
• Treaty of Canandaigua (1794). Text / transcription, New York State Museum (National Archives copy).
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Iroquoian entries. Accessed 2026.
• U.S. Congress (1988). H.Con.Res. 331, 100th Congress.

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Confederacy formation date — tradition vs. a wide scholarly range; (2) degree of constitutional influence — congressional acknowledgment vs. historians' debate; (3) current per-language speaker totals — deliberately not given, sources conflict.

Cherokee / Tsalagi

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = treaty text, court record, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = Cherokee oral tradition / nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point, stated as disputed. No ceremonial instructions are given; restricted knowledge is named only as restricted, or omitted. Today there are three federally recognised Cherokee governments in the United States — the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina (Cherokee Nation, n.d.; U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal directory) — and this entry concerns the Cherokee people historically and collectively, not only one government.

Language

• Family. Cherokee is an Iroquoian language — the sole member of the Southern Iroquoian branch, separated geographically from the Northern Iroquoian languages of the Haudenosaunee (Mithun, 1999, The Languages of Native North America). It is polysynthetic and tonal, features documented in published grammars (Montgomery-Anderson, 2015, Cherokee Reference Grammar, University of Oklahoma Press).
• Dialects. Published linguistics distinguishes historically three major dialect areas — Lower, Middle (Kituwah) and Overhill / Western — of which Middle and Western survive as living community dialects, in North Carolina and Oklahoma respectively (Montgomery-Anderson, 2015; Cherokee Nation Language Department materials).
• Status today. UNESCO's Atlas and Cherokee nation sources classify Cherokee as endangered. Speaker counts are contested by method: a widely cited Cherokee Preservation Foundation–commissioned survey begun in 2005 counted fluent speakers in the North Carolina communities in the hundreds, most over 50, and later reporting put the Eastern Band fluent figure lower still; Oklahoma figures published by the Cherokee Nation are larger but use different criteria (Cherokee Preservation Foundation survey, reported 2005–2019; Cherokee Nation, n.d.). This entry therefore gives no single total and flags the numbers as method-dependent — a gap for cultural review.
• Revival. Documented: Cherokee Nation immersion schooling (founded 2001 as the Cherokee Language Immersion School, Tahlequah), the Eastern Band's New Kituwah Academy immersion school, master-apprentice programmes, and Unicode / phone-keyboard support for the syllabary (Cherokee Nation, n.d.; Eastern Band / Kituwah Preservation & Education Program publications).

Traditions

• Towns and governance, high level. Historically Cherokee life centred on autonomous towns with council houses, with peace ("white") and war ("red") organisations described in the classic ethnographies (Mooney, 1900, Myths of the Cherokee, Bureau of American Ethnology; Gilbert, 1943, The Eastern Cherokees). In 1827 the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution modelled in part on republican forms while asserting Cherokee sovereignty — a documented fact of the published constitution text (Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, 1827).
• Seasonal round. Published sources describe maize-centred agriculture, hunting, and a ceremonial cycle tied to corn, including a green-corn observance (Mooney, 1900). The content of Cherokee ceremonial practice is community knowledge and is not described here beyond that public, high-level statement.
• Tradition — the people's own account: Cherokee origin and migration accounts, and the stories collected by James Mooney from Cherokee knowledge-keepers such as Swimmer (Ayunini), are published in Mooney (1900) explicitly as Cherokee tellings recorded in the 1880s–90s; they are presented on this site as the people's own accounts, not as archaeological findings.

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Hopewell (28 November 1785). The first U.S.–Cherokee treaty. Parties: the United States and "all the Cherokees." From the text: the Cherokee acknowledged U.S. protection (Art. III) and Article IV allotted a boundary for Cherokee hunting grounds (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785, in Kappler, 1904, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II; the Hopewell date is given as 20/28 November in different secondary records — the treaty text in Kappler is dated 28 November 1785, and the 20 November date appearing in Latimer v. Poteet, 39 U.S. 4 (1840), is a flagged discrepancy; see Weakest points).
• Treaty of Holston (2 July 1791). Parties: the United States and the Cherokee Nation. It redrew the Hopewell boundary, provided for a marked boundary surveyed by commissioners of both parties, and — in the treaty's own assimilation-era language — U.S. provision of farming implements and advice (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1791, Kappler, Vol. II; Cherokee Nation history timeline, n.d.).
• A long series of cession treaties (1804–1819 etc.) progressively reduced the eastern homeland; they are listed in Kappler, Vol. II, and should be enumerated on the site only from that record.
• Treaty of New Echota (29 December 1835) — and its contested ratification. Documented facts: signed at New Echota by a minority "Treaty Party" (including Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot) without authorisation from Principal Chief John Ross or the Cherokee National Council; it purported to cede all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million and land in Indian Territory. The overwhelming majority opposed it — a protest petition bearing, by published counts, more than 15,000 Cherokee names was presented to Congress — yet the U.S. Senate ratified it in May 1836 by one vote (Treaty with the Cherokee, 1835, Kappler, Vol. II; Perdue & Green, 2007, The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears; Cherokee Nation history materials). The forced removal of 1838–39 under the Indian Removal Act followed; Cherokee and U.S. sources alike record that more than 4,000 Cherokee died — published estimates vary, commonly 4,000–6,000 of roughly 16,000 removed, and the figure is debated (Thornton, 1984, "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears," Ethnohistory; National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail). Note also Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), in which the Supreme Court held Georgia law had no force in Cherokee territory — a documented holding that Georgia and the federal executive did not enforce.

Writings

• The Cherokee syllabary — Sequoyah, completed 1821. Documented fact: Sequoyah (also rendered George Gist / Guess in English sources), a Cherokee silversmith who did not read English, completed a syllabary of 85 characters (in its standard printed form), each representing a syllable of Cherokee, after roughly twelve years of work; the Cherokee National Council adopted it in 1825 (Walker & Sarbaugh, 1993, "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary," Ethnohistory 40(1); Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Published accounts report rapid, widespread literacy following adoption; precise literacy percentages sometimes quoted are not reliably documented and are not given here.
• Cherokee Phoenix (from 21 February 1828). The first Native American newspaper, bilingual Cherokee/English, printed at New Echota with type cast for the syllabary, edited by Elias Boudinot (Cherokee Phoenix, 1828–; Library of Congress, newspaper directory; Cherokee Nation, n.d.). Its press was seized by the Georgia Guard in 1835 (documented in Perdue, ed., 1983, Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot).
• What survives, where. Syllabary manuscripts, laws and newspapers are held by, among others, the Cherokee Nation, the Museum of the Cherokee People (Cherokee, NC), the Gilcrease Museum, and the Newberry Library; the Cherokee Phoenix continues today as the Cherokee Nation's newspaper (Cherokee Nation, n.d.).

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Rivercane basketry. Double-weave rivercane baskets are a signature documented Cherokee art, alongside white-oak and honeysuckle basketry (Museum of the Cherokee People collections; Hill, 1997, Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry, UNC Press).
• Agriculture. Maize, beans and squash — the Three Sisters complex shared across the Eastern Woodlands — plus sunflowers and, after contact, orchard fruit; Cherokee farmers were widely documented as adopters of plough agriculture, mills and printing in the 1820s "nation-building" period (Perdue & Green, 2007; McLoughlin, 1986, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic).
• Other documented arts. Carving (stone and wood), pottery revival at Qualla Boundary, and blowgun making are documented in museum and nation sources (Museum of the Cherokee People, n.d.).
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Mooney (1900) and later ethnobotanical compilations (e.g., Banks, 1953, Ethnobotany of the Cherokee Indians, MA thesis) record plants historically said to be used. Caution: traditional use as recorded historically is not proof of clinical effectiveness; this site gives no dosages, preparations, or treatment instructions, and Mooney himself noted that the formulas he recorded were knowledge-keeper material — some of it is treated as restricted by Cherokee communities today and is not reproduced here.

Sources

• Cherokee Nation (n.d.). History, Language Department, and Cherokee Phoenix pages. cherokee.org.
• Cherokee Preservation Foundation (2005– ). Cherokee language survey reporting, via Eastern Band sources.
• Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827). Published text.
• Gilbert, William H. (1943). The Eastern Cherokees. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 133.
• Hill, Sarah H. (1997). Weaving New Worlds. University of North Carolina Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Treaty with the Cherokee, 1785; 1791; 1835.
• McLoughlin, William G. (1986). Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Montgomery-Anderson, Brad (2015). Cherokee Reference Grammar. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Mooney, James (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. 19th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology.
• Perdue, Theda, ed. (1983). Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. University of Tennessee Press.
• Perdue, Theda & Green, Michael D. (2007). The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. Viking / Penguin.
• Thornton, Russell (1984). "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate." Ethnohistory 31(4).
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Cherokee entry. Accessed 2026.
• Walker, Willard & Sarbaugh, James (1993). "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary." Ethnohistory 40(1).
• Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Hopewell signing date, 20 vs. 28 November 1785, in different records; (2) Trail of Tears death toll — published range 4,000–6,000, no exact count exists; (3) current fluent-speaker totals — survey methods differ between Oklahoma and North Carolina counts; (4) post-syllabary literacy rates — widely repeated, poorly documented.

Anishinaabe / Ojibwe

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = treaty text, court record, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = Anishinaabe oral tradition / nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point. No ceremonial instructions are given. The Midewiwin is named only at the public, high level at which published Anishinaabe and scholarly sources name it; its teachings are community-restricted and are not described.

"Anishinaabe" (plural Anishinaabeg) is the people's own collective name; "Ojibwe" (also spelled Ojibway / Ojibwa; "Chippewa" in U.S. treaties and statutes) names the largest Anishinaabe grouping, alongside Odawa and Potawatomi in the Council of Three Fires (Warren, 1885, History of the Ojibway People, written by the Ojibwe historian William W. Warren; Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission [GLIFWC], n.d.). Anishinaabe homelands centre on the Great Lakes, extending across what is now Ontario, Manitoba, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Language

• Family. Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) is an Algonquian language, Central Algonquian subgroup (Mithun, 1999, The Languages of Native North America; Rhodes, 1985, Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary).
• Dialects. Published dialectology distinguishes, among others, Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) in Minnesota/Wisconsin, Northwestern Ojibwe, Ottawa (Odawa), and Algonquin, with a continuum rather than hard borders (Valentine, 2001, Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar, University of Toronto Press). Language material here is quoted only as printed in those sources.
• Writing. Two systems are in documented community use: the double-vowel (Fiero) Latin orthography, standard in much U.S. and Ontario teaching, and Cree-derived syllabics in some northern Ontario / Manitoba communities (Valentine, 2001; Nichols, 1996).
• Status today. UNESCO's Atlas lists Ojibwe varieties as endangered. Counts vary sharply by source and definition: older census-based summaries put Ojibwe people at roughly 320,000 across the U.S. and Canada (2010-era figures repeated in reference works), but speaker numbers are far smaller and are reported differently by Statistics Canada, the U.S. Census, and tribal programmes. This entry gives no single speaker total — flagged gap. Documented revitalisation includes the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Institute (Lac Courte Oreilles), university programmes at Bemidji State and the University of Minnesota, and the Ojibwe People's Dictionary (University of Minnesota, 2011– ), a nation-partnered published dictionary project.

Traditions

• Council of Three Fires. Tradition and documented alliance: Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi as elder, middle and younger brothers of a long-standing confederacy, recorded by Warren (1885) from Ojibwe oral accounts and treated in modern scholarship (White, 1991, The Middle Ground).
• Clan (doodem) system and seasonal round. Published sources describe patrilineal clans, and a seasonal round moving between fishing stations, sugar bush (maple), wild-rice lakes, hunting grounds and winter camps (Densmore, 1929, Chippewa Customs, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 86; Warren, 1885).
• Midewiwin. Named here only as published sources name it: a medicine society that is keeper of birchbark scroll records (see Writings). Its teachings and ceremonies are restricted; nothing of their content is given here (Hoffman, 1891, "The Midewiwin… of the Ojibwa," BAE 7th Annual Report — a 19th-century outsider account whose publication is itself ethically contested, noted for cultural review).
• Tradition — the people's own account: Anishinaabe migration accounts (from the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes, "where food grows on water") were recorded by Warren (1885) as Ojibwe oral history and are retold by GLIFWC and tribal sources today; they are presented here as the people's own account, distinct from archaeological models (see Benton-Banai, 1988, The Mishomis Book — an Anishinaabe-published teaching book).

Treaties Particular to Them

All four treaties below are U.S.–Ojibwe (Chippewa) treaties printed in Kappler, Vol. II, and summarised from the treaty record by GLIFWC and the 1854 Treaty Authority. In Canada, Anishinaabe nations are also parties to the Robinson Treaties (1850) and the Williams Treaties (1923) and numbered treaties — those deserve their own enumeration from Crown-Indigenous Relations sources and are flagged as a gap here rather than summarised from memory.

• Treaty of Washington (3 March 1836) — Ottawa and Chippewa. Ceded lands in Michigan's Lower Peninsula and eastern Upper Peninsula; Article 13 reserved fishing rights at the places of fishery — rights later affirmed for 1836-cession waters in United States v. Michigan, 471 F. Supp. 192 (W.D. Mich. 1979) (GLIFWC, "Cases Affirming Treaty Rights," n.d.).
• Treaty of St. Peters (29 July 1837) — Chippewa. The "Pine Tree Treaty": ceded pine lands in present Wisconsin/Minnesota; Article 5 expressly reserved "the privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice, upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded… during the pleasure of the President" (treaty text, Kappler, Vol. II). Affirmed as surviving in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172 (1999).
• Treaty of La Pointe (4 October 1842) — Chippewa. The "Copper Treaty": ceded mineral lands of the western Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior shore; Article II reserved hunting and "the usual privileges of occupancy" until required to remove by the President — removal was never lawfully effected for the Wisconsin bands (treaty text, Kappler, Vol. II; GLIFWC, n.d.).
• Treaty of La Pointe (30 September 1854) — Chippewa of Lake Superior and the Mississippi. Established permanent reservations in the homeland (e.g., Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac Courte Oreilles, Fond du Lac), ending the removal policy that had produced the Sandy Lake disaster of 1850, in which — by Minnesota Historical Society / GLIFWC accounts — about 400 Ojibwe died after annuity payments were moved to Sandy Lake (a published figure; exact toll is debated). Article 11 reserved hunting and fishing rights in the ceded territory for signatory bands resident there (treaty text; 1854 Treaty Authority, Understanding Chippewa Treaty Rights, 2020 ed.).
• The Voigt decision (1983). Lac Courte Oreilles Band v. Voigt, 700 F.2d 341 (7th Cir. 1983): held that the usufructuary rights reserved in the 1837 and 1842 treaties were not extinguished by the 1850 removal order or the 1854 treaty, and pre-empt unilateral state regulation; the U.S. Supreme Court declined review (GLIFWC, n.d.; Nesper, 2002, "Following a Micmac into Wisconsin's 'Boat Wars'" / and Nesper in American Indian Quarterly retrospective on 25 years of Ojibwe treaty rights). Later phases set harvest frameworks; intertribal management is exercised through GLIFWC (founded 1984 by the Voigt tribes).

Writings and Record Systems

• Birchbark scrolls (wiigwaasabak). Documented fact: Anishinaabe keepers recorded pictographic mnemonic records — migration charts, songs, maps and society records — incised on birchbark scrolls, some scrolls joining multiple bark sheets to many feet in length; examples are held by museums including the Smithsonian, and many remain in community keeping (Densmore, 1929; Hoffman, 1891 — see restriction note above; Dewdney, 1975, The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway, University of Toronto Press). Restitution and restricted-access questions attach to museum-held scrolls and are flagged for cultural review.
• Petroglyphs / pictographs at teaching rocks are documented in the archaeological literature; their locations and meanings are in part community-restricted and are not detailed here.
• Print. William W. Warren's History of the Ojibway People (written 1850s, published 1885, Minnesota Historical Society) is a foundational Indigenous-authored history, drawn from oral tradition.

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Manoomin (wild rice). Documented fact: manoomin — the word as printed by GLIFWC and tribal sources — is not true rice but an aquatic grass (Zizania palustris), harvested from canoes by knocking ripe grain into the boat, then parched, hulled and winnowed (Densmore, 1929; Vennum, 1988, Wild Rice and the Ojibway People, Minnesota Historical Society Press). It is both a staple food and, in Anishinaabe accounts, central to the migration tradition. Today manoomin is protected by tribal harvest regulation and by Minnesota's state grain designation; tribal nations have also litigated to protect rice waters from pollution and from patent / genetic-research claims (e.g., White Earth Nation's manoomin rights ordinances, 2018– ).
• Birchbark canoe and copper. Birchbark canoes are a signature documented technology (Densmore, 1929; Adney & Chapelle, 1964, The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, Smithsonian). Great Lakes peoples mined and cold-hammered native copper for millennia — the archaeological "Old Copper Complex" of the Archaic period, centred in present Wisconsin/Michigan (Pompeani et al., and Martin, 1999, Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin, Wayne State University Press). Note: the Old Copper Complex long predates historically known Ojibwe occupation, and attributing it simply to "the Ojibwe" would overstate the record — flagged.
• Other documented crafts. Beadwork (floral styles), quillwork, black-ash and birchbark basketry, and maple-sugar making (Densmore, 1929; Smithsonian NMAI collections).
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Densmore (1928, Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians, BAE 44th Annual Report) catalogues plants historically recorded as used. Caution: a historical record is not proof of clinical effectiveness; no dosages, preparations, or treatment instructions are given here.

Sources

• 1854 Treaty Authority (2020). Understanding Chippewa Treaty Rights in Minnesota's 1854 Ceded Territory.
• Adney, Edwin Tappan & Chapelle, Howard I. (1964). The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. Smithsonian Institution.
• Benton-Banai, Edward (1988). The Mishomis Book. Red School House / University of Minnesota Press reissue.
• Densmore, Frances (1928). Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology.
• Densmore, Frances (1929). Chippewa Customs. BAE Bulletin 86.
• Dewdney, Selwyn (1975). The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway. University of Toronto Press.
• Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) (n.d.). "Cases Affirming Treaty Rights"; Voigt Task Force pages. glifwc.org.
• Hoffman, Walter J. (1891). "The Midewiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa." BAE 7th Annual Report.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Treaties of 1836, 1837, 1842, 1854.
• Martin, Susan R. (1999). Wonderful Power. Wayne State University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Nesper, Larry (2002). The Walleye War. University of Nebraska Press.
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Ojibwe entries. Accessed 2026.
• Valentine, J. Randolph (2001). Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar. University of Toronto Press.
• Vennum, Thomas Jr. (1988). Wild Rice and the Ojibway People. Minnesota Historical Society Press.
• Warren, William W. (1885). History of the Ojibway People. Minnesota Historical Society.
• Lac Courte Oreilles Band v. Voigt, 700 F.2d 341 (7th Cir. 1983); Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band, 526 U.S. 172 (1999); United States v. Michigan, 471 F. Supp. 192 (1979).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Sandy Lake death toll (~400) — published but not exactly countable; (2) Old Copper Complex attribution — predates documented Ojibwe presence, must not be claimed as simply Ojibwe; (3) speaker totals — not given, sources conflict; (4) Canadian Anishinaabe treaties (Robinson, Williams) listed but not yet detailed from primary texts.

Lakota & Dakota (Oceti Sakowin)

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = treaty text, court record, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = Lakota/Dakota oral tradition or nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point. No ceremonial instructions are given; the content of ceremonies such as the Sun Dance and sweat lodge is community-restricted and is not described — only their existence as documented public facts is named, as the task permits.

The people's own collective name is Oceti Sakowin — "Seven Council Fires" — as printed by the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center and South Dakota's Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings (Aktá Lakota Museum, n.d.; South Dakota Department of Education, OSEU). The seven fires comprise: Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton (Sisitonwan) and Wahpeton (Dakota, "D" dialect); Yankton and Yanktonai (Nakota in common usage, "N"); and Teton (Lakota, "L"), itself of seven bands including Oglala, Sicangu (Brulé), Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Sihasapa, Oohenumpa and Itazipco (Aktá Lakota Museum, n.d.). "Sioux" is an exonym derived, through French, from an Ojibwe term — documented in reference sources and noted by Dakota scholars (Dartmouth / Medicine Bear Winter Count project, n.d.).

Language

• Family. Dakota and Lakota are Siouan languages, closely related varieties (Dakota, Lakota, and the Yankton-Yanktonai variety) of one language in most linguistic treatments, with the D/L/N correspondence the best-known dialect marker (Mithun, 1999; Ullrich, 2008, New Lakota Dictionary, Lakota Language Consortium).
• Writing. Latin orthographies: the Lakota Language Consortium's standard orthography (Ullrich, 2008) is widely used in schools; Dakota communities also use systems associated with Riggs (1852, Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language, Smithsonian) and community variants. Orthographic choice is a live community question — do not present one system as the people's single standard.
• Status today. UNESCO Atlas and tribal sources classify Lakota and Dakota as endangered. Counts are method-dependent and contested — immersion-school and tribal-census figures differ — so no single total is given here; flagged gap. Documented revitalisation: Lakota Language Consortium teaching materials, immersion schools including Lakȟól'iyapi Wahóȟpi (Lakota Language Nest, Standing Rock) and Tusweca Tiospaye (Pine Ridge), and Dakota Wicohan (Minnesota) (organisation publications, n.d.).

Traditions

• Kinship and governance, high level. The basic social unit in published ethnography is the tiospaye (extended family band — spelling as printed in OSEU materials); bands camped, hunted and governed through councils and leaders chosen for ability, with camp-circle organisation recorded in winter counts and ethnography (DeMallie, 2001, "Sioux until 1850," Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13, Smithsonian; Walker, 1982, Lakota Society, ed. DeMallie).
• Seasonal round and bison economy. Documented fact: Plains Lakota life in the 18th–19th centuries centred on communal bison hunting, tipi encampments moved seasonally, and trade; Dakota communities to the east combined horticulture (corn), wild-rice / fishing waters and hunting (DeMallie, 2001). The near-extermination of the bison herds in the 1870s–80s by market hunting — a documented U.S.-tolerated strategy — destroyed that economy (Isenberg, 2000, The Destruction of the Bison, Cambridge University Press).
• The Seven Council Fires' fire-keeping — carrying the sacred fire / embers when moving camp — is described in South Dakota OSEU materials as a symbol of sovereignty and unity (Douville, in OSEU draft, 2016). Present as nation-taught tradition.
• Ceremonies: named only. Published sources name seven Lakota rites in tradition attributed to White Buffalo Calf Woman — Tradition — the people's own account (Black Elk / Brown, 1953, The Sacred Pipe). Their content is restricted and is not described here.

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Fort Laramie (17 September 1851). Parties: the United States and the Sioux (Dakota/Lakota/Nakota), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and others. It defined territorial boundaries between the peoples, provided for U.S. roads and posts, and promised annuities (Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, Kappler, Vol. II). It did not cede Sioux land.
• Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) — the Sioux Treaty. Signed at Fort Laramie through spring–November 1868, following Red Cloud's War. From the text: Article 2 established the Great Sioux Reservation — all of present South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills — as land "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians"; Article 16 designated country north of the North Platte and east of the Bighorn summits as unceded Indian territory closed to white settlement or passage without Sioux consent; Article 12 provided that no future cession would be valid without signatures of at least three-fourths of all adult male Indians occupying or interested in the reservation (Treaty with the Sioux, 1868, Kappler, Vol. II; Smithsonian Magazine / National Museum of the American Indian, "Nation to Nation," Cutlip, 2018).
• The Black Hills taking (1876–1877). Documented facts: gold was confirmed in the Black Hills by the 1874 Custer expedition; the U.S. failed to purchase the Hills; an 1876 agreement obtained signatures from roughly 10% of adult Sioux men — far below Article 12's three-fourths requirement — and Congress enacted the cession by the Act of 28 February 1877 (sources: treaty scholarship surveyed in Lazarus, 1991, Black Hills/White Justice, HarperCollins; figures for the 10% signature share are those used by the Supreme Court's recitation and the Lakota Times summary of the case — treat as the court's record, not an independent count).
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (30 June 1980). The Supreme Court held the 1877 act effected a taking of the Black Hills (and other lands) without just compensation, in breach of the 1868 treaty, and upheld an award of the 1877 value plus 5% interest from 1877. The dollar figures are reported inconsistently in secondary sources — $15.5 million, $17.1 million and $17.5 million all appear for the principal in reputable summaries, with interest bringing the 1980 total to about $122 million (compare Smithsonian, 2018: "more than $100 million"; court text, 448 U.S. 371). This entry therefore states "about $122 million in 1980" and flags the principal figure for verification against the slip opinion before publication. Documented fact: the Sioux nations have refused to accept the money, maintaining the Black Hills were not for sale; the fund, with interest, has been reported at over $1 billion (figures dated 2011 in secondary sources; current value requires a fresh Bureau of Trust Funds source — flagged).
• Later agreements (1889) divided the Great Sioux Reservation into the present smaller reservations (Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brulé, Crow Creek) (Act of 2 March 1889; DeMallie, 2001).

Writings and Record Systems

• Winter counts (waniyetu wowapi — spelling as printed in OSEU materials). Documented fact: designated keepers painted one pictograph per year on hides (later cloth/paper), each image naming the year by a memorable event, the sequence serving as a chronological framework for oral history (Smithsonian Institution, Lakota Winter Counts online exhibit, National Museum of the American Indian / National Anthropological Archives; Greene & Thornton, eds., 2007, The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian, University of Nebraska Press). Named counts include those of Battiste Good, Lone Dog, Flame, and American Horse; originals are held at the Smithsonian and other museums, with copies and community editions in tribal keeping — provenance varies by count and is flagged per-item for review.
• Pictography on hides, tipis and ledger art (post-1870s, on paper) is documented in Smithsonian collections.
• Print and scholarship. Dakota-language print begins with mission presses and Riggs (1852); foundational Indigenous-authored works include Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa, Dakota) and Ella Deloria (Yankton Dakota), whose Dakota Texts (1932) and ethnographic work are standard scholarly sources.

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Tipi engineering. The conical tipi — adjustable smoke flaps, liner and dew-cloth insulation, rapidly erected and struck — is a documented, sophisticated Plains dwelling technology (Laubin & Laubin, 1957, The Indian Tipi; Smithsonian collections).
• Quillwork and beadwork. Porcupine-quill embroidery predates glass-bead work, for which Lakota floral and geometric styles are renowned (Smithsonian NMAI collections; Berlo & Phillips, 1998, Native North American Art, Oxford).
• Hide painting, parfleche (painted rawhide containers), and horse culture arts (from the 18th century) are documented in museum records.
• Agriculture. Eastern Dakota corn horticulture and, on the Plains, Lakota cultivation in river bottoms are documented (DeMallie, 2001), alongside the better-known bison economy.
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Published ethnobotany (e.g., Rogers, 1980, Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Great Lakes; Moerman, 1998, Native American Ethnobotany, Timber Press, database) records historical uses. Caution: historical record ≠ proof of clinical effectiveness; no dosages, preparations or treatment instructions are given. Sage, cedar and sweetgrass are widely named in public sources as significant plants; their ceremonial use is restricted and not described.

Sources

• Aktá Lakota Museum & Cultural Center (n.d.). "Oceti Sakowin: Seven Council Fires." akta lakota.stjo.org.
• Black Elk / Brown, Joseph Epes (1953). The Sacred Pipe. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Cutlip, Kimbra (2018). "In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty. The U.S. Broke It…" Smithsonian Magazine / NMAI.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). "Sioux until 1850." Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13. Smithsonian Institution.
• Greene, Candace S. & Thornton, Russell, eds. (2007). The Year the Stars Fell. University of Nebraska Press / Smithsonian.
• Isenberg, Andrew C. (2000). The Destruction of the Bison. Cambridge University Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Fort Laramie Treaties, 1851 and 1868.
• Lazarus, Edward (1991). Black Hills/White Justice. HarperCollins.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Moerman, Daniel E. (1998). Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press.
• Riggs, Stephen R. (1852). Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language. Smithsonian Institution.
• South Dakota Department of Education (2016–2024 drafts). Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and Standards (OSEU).
• Ullrich, Jan F. (2008). New Lakota Dictionary. Lakota Language Consortium.
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Lakota, Dakota entries. Accessed 2026.
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) The 1980 award principal — $15.5M / $17.1M / $17.5M in different reputable summaries; verify against 448 U.S. 371 before publication; (2) current trust-fund value ("over $1 billion" is a 2011-era secondary figure); (3) speaker totals deliberately omitted; (4) the 1876 "10% of adult men" signature figure comes from the litigation record, not an independent census.

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