Treaty of Lewistown

On August 3, 1829, members of the Shawnee Indians and the Seneca Indians signed the Treaty of Lewistown with the United States. In this treaty, Senecas and Shawnees living at Lewistown, Ohio, relinquished their claim to the land and joined the rest of the Ohio Senecas already living on a reservation west of the Mississippi River.

The United States government granted this group of about three hundred Indians 60,000 acres (240 km²) of land in the west and a six thousand dollar advance on the sale of their Ohio lands. In addition, the United States presented the natives with blankets, plows, axes, hoes, rifles, and other supplies.

On July 20, 1831, James B. Gardiner, acting on behalf of U.S. President Andrew Jackson, signed the treaty which stipulated, in part:

The Seneca and Shawnee Indians, residing at and around Lewistown in the State of Ohio, in consideration of the stipulations herein made on the part of the United States, do for ever cede, release and quit claim to the United States, the lands granted to them by patent in fee simple by the sixth article of the treaty made at the foot of the rapids of the Miami river of Lake Erie, on the twenty-ninth day of September, in the year 1817 (September 29, 1817), containing forty-eight square miles, and described in said treaty as follows:

“Beginning at the intersection of the line run by Charles Roberts in the year one thousand eight hundred and twelve, from the source of the Little Miami river, to the source of the Scioto river, in pursuance of instructions from the commissioners appointed on the part of the United States, to establish the western boundary of the Virginia military reservation, with the Indian boundary line established by the treaty of Greenville in one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five from the crossings above Fort Lawrence to Loramie's store, and to run from such intersection, northerly, with the first mentioned line, so as to include the quantity as nearly in a square form as practicable, after excluding the section of land granted to Nancy Stewart.”

And the said Senecas and Shawnees also cede to the United States, in manner aforesaid, one other tract of land, reserved for them by the second article of the treaty made at St. Mary's, in Ohio, on the seventeenth of September, in the year 1818 (September 17, 1818), which tract is described in said treaty as follows:

“Eight thousand nine hundred and sixty acres, to be laid off adjoining the west line of the reserve of forty-eight square miles at Lewistown.”

— Treaty with the Seneca, etc., 1831, article 1

References

• Ohio Historical Society, 2005, “Treaty of Lewistown (1829)”, Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History.