The Treaty of St. Mary’s, 1818

The Treaty of St. Mary’s, signed in 1818, is six separate treaties signed in September and October of that year. These separate treaties were signed with the Native Wyandot, Seneca, Shawnee, Ottawa, Wyandot, Potawatomi, Wea, Delaware, and Miami nations. They sold a large portion of land in the middle of the state to the U.S. government. This moved the northern and northwestern boundary of the new state of Indiana to the Wabash River. The assortment of Native nations received other land, lump sum payments, and annuity payments in exchange.

The Miami gave up most of their lands south of the Wabash River in exchange for the Great Miami Reserve. It encompassed roughly 875,000 acres of land in northern central Indiana, being located just north of the northernmost treaty line of the Treaty of St. Mary’s. The treaty would also play a large role in helping divide and isolate different Miami villages, as the Miami lands beyond the Great Miami Reserve included six village reservations a few square miles large. These smaller village reservations ensured the Miami living there would be isolated and dependent.

Dependence on U.S. support was a manipulative strategy used to entrap Native nations by making them more and more dependent on their annuity payments given in exchange for land. To nations like the Miami, these payments began to replace practices like trading and trapping as their main form of income. The merchants and traders who acted as middlemen between Native nations like the Miami and the U.S. government made it easier for nations to quickly, and often predatorily, exchange their yearly payments for fine goods and alcohol. This was a common practice when dealing with Native nations all over America, trapping them in a cycle of reliance which always ended with more and more lands sold at bargain prices to the U.S. government.