Tribal Lands Ceded to the United States from 1778 to 1894

From 1778 to 1894, this dataset contains 752 digitized polygon features representing land cessions and reservations from 67 historical maps compiled by Charles C. Royce. It was created by the U.S. Forest Service from the 1896-1897 Bureau of American Ethnology report, georeferenced and digitized with attributes linking to treaty dates and tribal names.

Use Cases

• Analyze the spatial distribution of land cessions by specific Tribe(s) to identify historical patterns of territorial change.
• Map the temporal sequence of cessions using the Date(s) attribute to visualize the westward expansion of the United States.
• Join polygon features to the Schedule of Indian Land Cessions using the Map Cession ID for detailed historical research on treaty terms.
• Study the relationship between cession boundaries and modern geography by overlaying the 752 polygon features on contemporary base maps.

Strengths

• Based on 67 authoritative historical maps from the 1896-1897 Bureau of American Ethnology report.
• Contains 752 precisely digitized polygon features with topology maintained between adjacent boundaries.
• Attributes include specific treaty Date(s) and Tribe(s) names, linked to original source documents via URLs.

Limitations

• The dataset's temporal coverage ends in 1894, excluding 20th and 21st-century land agreements.
• Spatial accuracy is limited by the original map scales and georeferencing against 1:2,000,000 scale base data.
• Attribute completeness depends on the transcription from the 19th-century Schedule, which may have omissions or archaic terminology.

Provenance

Source

Charles C. Royce's maps and Schedule of Indian Land Cessions from the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896-1897.

Collection Method

67 scanned maps were georeferenced and digitized into polygon features by the U.S. Forest Service, with attributes transcribed from the Schedule.

Time Range

1778 to 1894

Freshness

Data last updated on 2025-04-21, though the underlying historical records are static.

Geography

United States, focusing on areas of tribal land cessions and reservations.