Western Promises: The History of U.S. Treaty Violations Against Native Americans
The U.S. government systematically violated hundreds of treaties with Native American nations, leading to centuries of displacement, cultural destruction, and ongoing resistance by Indigenous communities.
The history of the United States is steeped in a grim legacy of betrayal, especially when it comes to the land on which Americans currently call home.
Virtually any land that was not lost, stolen or otherwise surrendered by way of genocide, was ultimately pilfered away through treaties that were ignored with American indifference.
Over centuries, the U.S. government systematically broke promises made, each one a contract that was supposed to guarantee peace, protect lands, or offer compensation.
Instead, these agreements were routinely violated, leading to the loss of life, culture, and sovereignty for Native American tribes.
Central to this betrayal are several key treaties, each of which serves as a reminder of the U.S. government's ongoing failure to honor its commitments to Indigenous peoples.
The Era of Treaty Betrayal
Between 1778 and 1871, the U.S. entered into more than 500 treaties with Native American nations. These agreements promised peace and territorial boundaries but were used as tools for expansion and dispossession.
True to American form, every one of these treaties was violated. These broken promises weren’t isolated incidents—they were part of a calculated, systemic strategy aimed at seizing Native lands and resources.
One particularly notorious example is the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), which guaranteed the Lakota people ownership of the Black Hills, a region they considered sacred.
However, when gold was discovered in the area, the U.S. quickly reneged on the agreement, forcibly taking the land and displacing the Lakota.
Today, the land is home to an audacious, graven image featuring the bust of four U.S. presidents—two of them slave owners, one of them a bigoted assimilator of Indigenous people, and the last one responsible for the largest mass hanging in U.S. history, which killed 38 Dakota Indians.
This offense is even more egregious when one considers that the portion of the area that was defaced, a mountain known as The Six Grandfathers, was a sacred mountain to local tribes for untold generations.
The Black Hills remain a point of legal and cultural contention to this day, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the land had been illegally taken, offering compensation that the Lakota refuse to accept in lieu of the return of their sacred land.
The Trail of Broken Promises: Notorious Treaties
Among the hundreds of treaties broken by the U.S. government, some stand out for the sheer scale of the deception and the devastation they caused.
Treaty of New Echota (1835): This treaty forced the Cherokee Nation to cede their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for land in the West. It was signed by a small faction of the Cherokee people, not their legitimate government, and led to the infamous Trail of Tears. Over 4,000 Cherokee died during the forced relocation westward, a tragic journey that remains one of the most egregious examples of treaty violations in U.S. history.
Treaty of Medicine Lodge (1867): Signed with southern Plains tribes such as the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, this treaty promised protection and supplies in exchange for the tribes moving onto reservations. But these promises were almost immediately broken as the U.S. failed to deliver the necessary supplies and allowed settler encroachment onto reservation land. This led to further displacement and set the stage for violent conflicts like the Red River War.
Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830): This treaty was part of the Indian Removal Act and forced the Choctaw to cede their lands in Mississippi. The relocation process was fraught with death and suffering, as the government failed to provide adequate resources for the Choctaw during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma. The tragedy of this treaty would foreshadow the suffering of other tribes forced westward under the Removal Act.
Treaty of Point Elliott (1855): Signed in the Pacific Northwest, this treaty guaranteed fishing rights and lands for several tribes, including the Duwamish and Suquamish. However, the U.S. government continually restricted access to traditional fishing grounds, leading to economic hardships that persist to this day. Legal battles over these rights have continued, with rulings like the Boldt Decision reaffirming Native fishing rights but sparking new conflicts.
These treaties are glaring reminders of the U.S. government's deep-rooted pattern of erasing Native cultures and exploiting Native lands. They reveal a broader strategy where treaties were signed to momentarily placate Native resistance, only to be broken when white settlers or the government found new ways to profit from Indigenous lands.
Colonialism, Genocide, and Land Theft
The U.S. government's continual violation of treaties must be viewed within the broader context of colonialism and genocide. They were part of a coordinated effort to dismantle Native nations, destroy their cultures, and seize their lands.
What many history books euphemistically call "westward expansion," or "Manifest Destiny" was, in reality, an intentional campaign of cultural genocide.
More than 1.5 billion acres of land were taken from Native nations, often through treaties that the U.S. had no intention of honoring. The physical dispossession was only part of the assault. Native languages, religious practices, and social structures were systematically dismantled.
Generations of Native Americans were left to struggle with the psychological and cultural scars of these violations, while their ancestral lands were parceled out for farming, mining, and settlement.
The Legal and Moral Implications of U.S. Treaty Violations
The violations of these treaties didn’t just result in the physical displacement of Native peoples; they had far-reaching legal and moral consequences. In many cases, Native nations have pursued legal avenues to reclaim their stolen lands, only to be met with resistance or inadequate compensation.
The ongoing legal battle over the Black Hills is a prime example. Despite a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Lakota Sioux, the U.S. government continues to offer monetary compensation rather than returning the land.
The Lakota have steadfastly refused the money, asserting that no amount of money can compensate for the loss of their sacred lands.
The Treaty of Greenville (1795), for instance, marked one of the earliest significant land cessions in U.S. history. Native tribes in the Ohio Valley were forced to give up vast territories after their defeat in the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
Although the treaty promised that no further land would be taken, it set a precedent for continued encroachment and treaty violations, sparking violent conflicts for years to come.
Ongoing Struggles and Native Resilience
From ongoing legal battles over stolen lands to modern movements like the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, Native people continue to fight for their rights, lands, and dignity.
Even today, as Joe Biden travels to Gila River community in Arizona, he does so to give a performative “apology” for the harm caused by American-made Indian Boarding Schools.
Unfortunately, apologies like this, while great for public relations optics, do very little to address the damage that years of encroachment, displacement and the diverting of natural resources have had on this community.
Indeed, the U.S. government’s disregard for Native sovereignty persists, as evidenced by the prioritization of corporate and federal interests over Indigenous rights. Fortunately, recent pushback has been successful in this respect.
Nevertheless, the environmental destruction, land grabs, and political disenfranchisement continue to disproportionately affect Native communities, and more resistance will be necessary in order to enact real change.
A Legacy of Betrayal and Resistance
The United States has built much of its wealth and expansion on the broken backs of Native nations.
Undoing the legacy of broken treaties and land theft calls for a robust process of decolonization, a path that leads not only toward reclaiming land but also toward reclaiming Indigenous culture.
Movements like #LANDBACK are vital components, advocating for the restoration of stolen lands to Indigenous stewardship as a step toward justice and healing.
Of course, decolonization is more than a matter of territory; it involves deprograming from false narratives about American exceptionalism that have been allowed to persist unchallenged.
Only by fully acknowledging and counteracting this cycle of displacement and cultural genocide can future descendants truly recover their sovereignty and pass down their rich heritage to future generations.