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 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, 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 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 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 a form similar to
Indian reservations. In 1834 Congress repealed the rule.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 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 , 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.
Nebraska The Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation was established on July 15, 1830. The tract's eastern border was the Missouri River, and the property extended inland for . 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 a legal entity by 1861.
Kansas An 1825 treaty with the
Kaw Indians reserved land of (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 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 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 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 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.
Minnesota and Wisconsin 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 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 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 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." ==See also==