Charles Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, an extensive compilation of ratified treaties between Native nations and the United States, is widely referenced by modern historians. However, Kappler’s compilation is incomplete. Not all treaties were between Native nations and the United States government, and not all treaties were ratified. Sometimes Native nations made treaties with each other, and these treaties forewent congressional approval and landed straight on the president’s desk. Historians have largely overlooked this treaty making between Native nations.
In A History in Indigenous Voices, Carol Cornelius seeks to reclaim the narrative of Indigenous removals by focusing on these nation-to-nation treaties, which despite possessing the president’s signature were not ratified by Congress and ultimately were deemed unofficial. She shows what Indigenous signatories thought they were agreeing to in both nation-to-nation treaties and treaties with the United States. For Cornelius, doing so has been a longtime goal: “As...
