A Half-Breed Tract was a segment of land designated in the western states by the United States government in the 19th century specifically for Métis of American Indian and European or European-American ancestry, at the time commonly known as half-breeds . The government set aside such tracts in several parts of the Midwestern prairie region, including in Iowa Territory , Nebraska Territory , Kansas Territory , Minnesota Territory , and Wisconsin Territory .
30-560: Historically, the mixed-blood population in the Pays d'en Haut region surrounding the Great Lakes were typically the descendants of Native American women and White men, often men of French-Canadian or Scots (including Orcadian ) origin, who dominated early fur trapping and trade. These men lived far from other Europeans. Others had fathers who were American trappers and traders. The children typically grew up in their mother's tribes, where
60-834: A form similar to Indian reservations . A Half-Breed Tract was located in Lee County , Iowa . An 1824 treaty between the Sauk people , the Fox tribe , and the United States set aside a reservation for mixed-blood people related to the tribes. Lying between the Mississippi , and Des Moines rivers and below an eastward extension of the Sullivan Line , the Tract occupied an area of approximately 119,000 acres (480 km). Under
90-585: A legal entity by 1861. An 1825 treaty with the Kaw Indians reserved land of 1 square mile (2.6 km) (640 acres) for each of twenty-three Kaw mixed bloods. The tracts were located on the north bank of the Kansas River from present day Topeka to Williamstown . The purpose of granting the land to the mixed-bloods was to gain their support for the treaty in which the Kaw ceded a large amount of land to
120-603: A wealthy Scots-Irish fur trader and his Ojibwe wife, who was daughter of an Ojibwe chief. Johnston Schoolcraft was born in 1800 and lived most of her life in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan , where she grew up in both cultures and learned French , English and Ojibwe . She wrote in English and Ojibwe. She married Henry Rowe Schoolcraft , who became a renowned ethnographer, in part due to her and her family's introduction to Native American culture. A major collection of her writings
150-645: Is Jean Baptiste Charbonneau , who guided the Mormon Battalion from New Mexico to the city of San Diego in California in 1846 and then accepted an appointment there as alcalde of Mission San Luis Rey. Both his parents worked with the Lewis and Clark Expedition , his mother Sacagawea as the invaluable Shoshone guide and his French-Canadian father Toussaint Charbonneau as an interpreter of Shoshone and Hidatsa , cook and laborer. J.B. Charbonneau
180-477: Is depicted on the United States dollar coin along with his mother Sacagawea . Another example is Jane Johnston Schoolcraft , inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2008, in recognition of her literary contributions. She is recognized as the first Native American literary writer and poet, and the first Native American poet to write in an indigenous language. Jane Johnston was the daughter of
210-839: The Arkansas River in Oklahoma in exchange for a reservation in Kansas and Oklahoma. Forty-two tracts of one-square mile each were reserved for the mixed blood children of French traders and Osage women. Most of the tracts were scattered around eastern Kansas but a few were on the Neosho River in Oklahoma. The 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien specified the following boundaries of a Half-Breed Tract centered around Lake Pepin , as follows: The Sioux bands in council have earnestly solicited that they might have permission to bestow upon
240-462: The Omaha had a patrilineal system, and considered mixed-race children of European or "white" fathers to be white unless formally adopted into the tribe by a man. Other tribes had matrilineal systems, and children were considered born into the mother's clan and took their status from her. Due to hypodescent (assignment of children of a mixed union to the subordinate group) and the fact that many of
270-561: The Southwestern United States for several generations prior to annexation of that region into the United States. However, identification on the US Census has historically been limited by its terminology and the option to only select one "race" in the past. Others have classified themselves as mestizo, particularly those who also identify as Chicano . Hispanics of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent are most numerous on
300-636: The East Coast, especially in Florida , New York and New England . The most recent Hispanic immigrants, who arrived during mid-century until today, have mainly identified as mestizo or Amerindian . They have come from Mexico , Central and North South America . Of the over 35 million Hispanics counted in the Federal 2000 Census, the overwhelming majority of the 42.2% who identified as "some other race" are believed to be mestizos—a term not included on
330-637: The Half-Breed Tract, probably in 1837, from a land speculation company. Deeds to most of the land were faulty and could not be held. This left the church with only about 1,000 acres (4.0 km), including a town called Commerce in Illinois . The Mormons moved to this Illinois site from Far West, Missouri , to escape the Missouri Executive Order 44 issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs . The Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation
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#1732780914791360-798: The Pappan Ferry in the 1840s, a crossing of the Kansas River used by pioneers heading west on the Oregon Trail . Tract four was allotted to Julie Gonville, the maternal grandmother of Charles Curtis , later elected U.S. Senator from Kansas and the Vice President of the United States. A similar treaty was signed in 1825 between the Osage Indians and the United States. The Osage ceded lands in Missouri, Arkansas, and south of
390-542: The Roman law of nations, and infrequently appeared in the antebellum period. Newspapers and southern secession, the (a)politics of slavery, and the (a)politics of Native America would be crucial for a sociopolitical lens. Contemporary energy policy, technology, and notions of Native American sovereignties in post-(neo)apartheid indigenous worlds converge, and then intersect with, community criteria in landscapes of power . These green politics rest on earlier precedents, such as
420-572: The Sioux for having violated the terms of an earlier treaty. The land reclamation followed explorers' identification of the area as a "mineral region" with the prospect that, "lead will be found there, and probably copper also." Mixed-blood The term mixed-blood in the United States and Canada has historically been described as people of multiracial backgrounds, in particular mixed European and Native American ancestry. Today,
450-752: The Southeast Woodlands, tribes began having inter-generational marriage and sexual relationships with the Europeans in the early 1700s. Many Cherokee bands and families were quick to see the economic benefits of having trade, land and business dealings with Europeans, strengthened through marriages. Prominent Cherokee and Creek leaders of the 19th century were of mixed-descent but, born to Indian mothers in matrilineal kinship societies, they identified fully and were accepted as Indian and grew up in those cultures. Renowned persons of mixed-blood ancestry in United States' history are many. One such example
480-527: The US Census but widely used in Latin America. Of the 47.9% of Hispanics who identified as "White Hispanic", many acknowledge possessing Amerindian ancestry, as do many European Americans who identify as "White". Hispanics identifying as multiracial amounted to 6.3% (2.2 million) of all Hispanics; they likely included many mestizos as well as individuals of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry. Great Nemaha River The Nemaha River basin includes
510-514: The United States in exchange for annuities. Indian Superintendent William Clark said, "Reserves of this kind ... have a good effect in promoting civilization ... an idea of separate property is imparted without which it is vain to think of improving the minds and morals of the Indian." Several of the Kaw half-breed tracts were to become important sites in Kansas history. In 1827 the Kaw Agency
540-526: The areas of the U.S. state of Nebraska below the Platte River basin that drain directly into the Missouri River . The major streams of the drainage include Weeping Water Creek, Muddy Creek, Little Nemaha River , and Big Nemaha River . The basin has a total area of approximately 2,800 square miles (7,300 km ), and includes much of southeastern Nebraska. The name 'Nemaha' originates in
570-520: The consequences of Grand Coulee Dam construction and 1950s scholarly debates over indigenous territoriality in American Society for Ethnohistory member testimony. Mestizo is the contemporary term for Hispanic individuals (whether US-born or immigrant) of a similar mixed ancestry (Indigenous and European), but based on different groups. Many Hispanic Americans who have identified as "white" are of Spanish descent, having had ancestors in
600-637: The descendants when the tribes ceded communal lands to the U.S. government in exchange for payment. The rights of mixed-blood descendants to payments or a part in decisionmaking were not usually acknowledged. In 1830 the federal government acknowledged this problem by the Fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien , which effectively set aside a tract of land for mixed-blood people related to the Oto , Ioway , Omaha , Sac and Fox and Santee Sioux tribes. The treaty granted these "Half-Breed Tracts" as sections of land in
630-443: The fathers and families were offered protection if not full membership. As relations between the United States government and the tribes became more complex, the mixed-race children often were excluded from benefiting both from the federal laws governing Indians and the political rights of their fathers because of discrimination on both sides. The tribes had their own kinship systems and rules of descent and inheritance. For instance,
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#1732780914791660-544: The half-breeds of their nation the tract of land within the following limits, to wit: Beginning at the place called the Barn , below and near the village of the Red Wing chief , and running back fifteen miles; thence, in a parallel line with Lake Pepin and the Mississippi , about 32 miles, to a point opposite the river aforesaid; the United States agree to suffer said half-breeds to occupy said tract of country; they holding by
690-494: The mixed-race children grew up in tribes on the frontier, Europeans tended to classify them as being more Indian than white. The fact that their fathers lived "outside" civilized society as mountain men contributed to this notion, as well. The Omaha and other tribal leaders advocated setting land aside for the mixed-blood descendants; usually the intent was to award land to male heads of families. The relationship between mixed-bloods and their ancestral tribes particularly affected
720-416: The original treaty, the half-breed people had the right to occupy the soil, but individuals could not buy or sell the land. In 1834 Congress repealed the rule. Immediately afterward, claim jumpers claimed much of the land. The government gave away mixed-blood peoples' claims to the land, effectively ending the provisions of the Half-Breed Tract by 1841. Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. purchased parts of
750-411: The same title, and in the same manner that other Indian titles are held. This description includes a large part of what is now Wabasha County, Minnesota , and some part of Goodhue County, Minnesota . Despite the petitions of several "half-breed" landowners, who had by then lived there for more than twelve years, the U.S. government took the land in 1852 under the premise of serving as restitution against
780-428: The term is often seen as pejorative . Some of the most prominent in the 19th century were "mixed-blood" or mixed-race descendants of fur traders and Native American women along the northern frontier. The fur traders tended to be men of social standing and they often married or had relationships with daughters of Native American chiefs, consolidating social standing on both sides. They held high economic status of what
810-625: Was established on July 15, 1830. The tract's eastern border was the Missouri River, and the property extended inland for 10 miles (16 km). The north/south borders were between the Little Nemaha River to the north and the Great Nemaha River , near Falls City to the south. Owners were never required to live on their property and many eventually sold their lands to whites. Nebraska's Half-Breed Tract vanished as
840-509: Was for years in the 18th and 19th centuries a two-tier society at settlements at trading posts , with other Europeans, American Indians, and mixed-blood workers below them. Mixed-blood is also used occasionally in Canadian accounts to refer to the 19th century Anglo-Métis population rather than Métis, which referred to a specific cultural group of people of First Nations and French descent, with their own language, Michif . Similarly in
870-472: Was founded on Tract number 23, allotted to Joseph James, Jr. Here lived the Government Agent to the Kaw; the government farmer Daniel M. Boone, son of the famous pioneer, Daniel Boone ; a blacksmith; several mixed-blood Kaw-French traders, and White Plume , recognized by the U.S. government as the head chief of the Kaw. Tract number three, located on the site of Topeka, was to become the site of
900-931: Was published in 2007. In United States historiography, Republican and Democratic partisan debates over the antebellum extension of citizenship to "persons of mixed Indian blood" in western state constitutional conventions may or may not recalibrate research aims . The consequences of ratified constitutional articles on commerce and labor for public policy and, to a lesser degree, burgeoning western state and/or federal litigation, remain fruitful avenues for further research. The violent vectors of "free soil" ideas impacted Anglo-American and Native American cultures, already buffeted by wage labor systems. This violence, symbolic or otherwise, interfaced with non-dichotomous notions of kinship and (related) Anglo-American lexical glosses of Native American cultural expression in treaties of friendship . Such treaties featured seventeenth- and eighteenth-century interpretive applications of ius gentium ,
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