Treaty of St. Louis

What it is

This 1804 treaty was concluded between the United States, represented by William Henry Harrison, and five Sauk and Meskwaki chiefs led by Quashquame. It transferred a huge stretch of land between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers to the United States in exchange for a small lump payment and a yearly annuity.

Why it matters

The chiefs who signed were not authorized by their tribes to sell land, and the Sauk and Meskwaki came to see the treaty as invalid and deeply unfair. The resentment it caused pushed many Sauk toward alliance with Britain in the War of 1812, and decades later fed into the Black Hawk War. The treaty shows how Harrison, as a territorial governor acting under instructions from President Jefferson, used negotiation and pressure to open Native lands to settlers.

Look closer

• Why might a few chiefs have agreed to terms their people later rejected?
• What does the payment offered reveal about how the United States valued this land compared to the people living on it?
• What does the map leave out about the people who already lived in the ceded territory?