From the parchment of 1783 to NATO, NAFTA and landmark Indigenous compacts, U.S. treaty‑making traces the country’s rise, its continental expansion, and an ongoing struggle to honor promises made to Native Nations. This long‑read follows the constitutional rules, the land deals that drew the map, the thousands of agreements with tribes, and how courts and Congress reshaped it all.
The Constitution makes treaties the supreme law of the land but intentionally splits the power to make them: the President negotiates and signs; the Senate advises and must approve by a two‑thirds vote. This design forces consensus when the stakes are national—war and peace, borders, alliances, trade, and Indigenous relations. Over time, the U.S. also developed two other instruments that look and function like treaties without the two‑thirds hurdle: congressional‑executive agreements (approved by a simple majority in both chambers, e.g., modern trade pacts) and sole‑executive agreements (relatively narrower commitments made under the President’s own authority). Together, these three pathways form the real‑world toolkit of American diplomacy.
The United States entered the world system through parchment doors. The 1778 alliance with France secured the aid that made Yorktown possible; the 1783 Treaty of Paris formally ended the Revolutionary War and recognized U.S. independence; the 1794 Jay Treaty stabilized British‑American relations and trade; and the 1814 Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 without territorial loss. These early pacts taught two lessons that would echo for centuries: treaties are leverage‑hungry (you must have something the other side wants), and treaties are only as strong as the domestic politics that sustain them.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Nineteenth‑century American treaties redrew the continent. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled U.S. territory in a three‑document package with France. Spain’s Adams–Onís Treaty (1819) delivered Florida and clarified a long sweep of western boundaries. The Oregon Treaty (1846) fixed the 49th parallel to the Pacific, and the 1867 Alaska Purchase transferred Russia’s North American outpost to the United States. On paper, these were tidy lines; on the ground, they overlapped homelands of dozens of Native Nations, setting the stage for the next—and most numerous—category of American treaties.
Between 1778 and 1871 the United States concluded hundreds of treaties with Native Nations—Haudenosaunee, Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw, Cherokee, Lakota and Dakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, many more. These were not “domestic agreements” at the time; they were nation‑to‑nation compacts about land, peace, trade, passage, annuities, and jurisdiction. Treaties often mixed Indigenous diplomatic protocols (wampum belts, gift‑giving, adoption) with American paperwork (wax seals, survey bearings), and translation gaps were common. The results ranged from affirmations of sovereignty to instruments of dispossession.
Early eastern treaties alternated between reconciliation and cession. The 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua affirmed Haudenosaunee lands in New York and promised annual goods; the 1795 Treaty of Greenville drew a new line after the Northwest Indian War. In the 1830s, removal‑era compacts like Dancing Rabbit Creek (Choctaw, 1830) and New Echota (Cherokee, 1835) legalized the forced migrations that followed. Farther west, the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie mapped out Great Plains territories among Plains Nations and promised safe passage for U.S. emigrants; after gold stampeded into the Black Hills, a second Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) recognized the Great Sioux Reservation and hunting rights—promises soon broken as railroads and miners surged in. The 1867 Medicine Lodge treaties tried to end war on the Southern Plains by concentrating peoples onto reservations, tethering rations and schools to “peace.”
In 1871 Congress declared that no further treaties would be made with Native Nations. Existing treaties remained binding law, but Washington would henceforth govern Indian affairs through statutes and executive orders. The change did not erase sovereignty—tribal nations remained self‑governing domestic dependents in federal law—but it did end the formal nation‑to‑nation treaty pathway that had structured relations since the 1770s.
Much of the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries has involved courts interpreting old promises. Decisions have reaffirmed reserved water rights on reservations, protected off‑reservation treaty fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, enforced hunting rights, and in recent years recognized that historic reservation boundaries still exist unless Congress clearly says otherwise. In short: treaties do not evaporate with time; they endure until honored, amended, or lawfully abrogated—and when governments fall short, courts can compel performance.
After World War II, the U.S. leaned into multilateral treaty‑making. The UN Charter (1945) recast global diplomacy; the North Atlantic Treaty (1949) pledged collective defense; later arms‑control accords and human‑rights conventions further embedded the U.S. in rule‑making that goes beyond any one nation’s borders. These treaties are debated in the Senate like their eighteenth‑century predecessors, but they bind the U.S. into communities of law where reciprocity, inspection, and alliance politics all reinforce compliance.
Not every international commitment goes through the two‑thirds Senate window. Especially since the 1930s, Presidents and Congress have relied on congressional‑executive agreements for trade and economic integration (approved by simple majorities in both houses), and on narrower sole‑executive agreements for matters within the President’s independent authority. In practice, many of America’s most consequential post‑1945 deals—trade, basing, technical cooperation—live in this space, while defense and charter‑level obligations typically remain treaties.
Between winter 1854 and early 1855, Governor Isaac Stevens convened a rapid series of treaty councils across the Salish Sea and Olympic Peninsula. Each compact mixed Native protocol—councils, speeches, gift‑giving—with American paperwork—surveys, signatures, and wax seals. The through‑line was reserved rights: tribes kept the right to fish, hunt, and gather at their “usual and accustomed” places while ceding title to large territories. A century later, those verbs would anchor court rulings that still shape the region.
Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, and Squaxin leaders met at She‑nah‑nam (Medicine Creek). The treaty created three small reservations, promised annuities, schools, and a blacksmith, and—crucially—recognized continued fishing and hunting. The first Nisqually reservation, rocky and away from the river, helped spark war and the wrongful hanging of Chief Leschi. A century later, courts would reaffirm that the fishing promise meant a fair share of the runs and protection for access.
At Mukilteo, Duwamish, Suquamish, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, Lummi, Skagit, Swinomish and other signatories concluded the Point Elliott Treaty. It reserved fishing “in common with” citizens, protected village sites and burial grounds, and promised physicians and teachers. Oral understandings carried by leaders like siʔaɫ (Chief Seattle) met a ten‑page English document—the two records do not always map cleanly onto each other, which is exactly why wording such as “usual and accustomed” later mattered so much.
S’Klallam (Klallam), Chimakum, and Skokomish representatives signed at Hahdskus (Point No Point). The compact created the Skokomish Reservation and, like the others, affirmed off‑reservation fishing and gathering. It also required trade exclusively with the United States and prohibited taking new slaves—clauses that reveal how treaties reshaped Native–settler economies as much as land lines.
The Makah Treaty of Neah Bay is distinctive: it explicitly reserves ocean rights—fishing, sealing, and whaling—central to Makah life. That specificity, negotiated in Chinook Jargon with interpreters, is why Makah citizens can still assert whaling through a modern federal process. Here, “reserved rights” were not abstractions; they named boats, beaches, and seasonal migrations.
.jpg)
Wampum belts and peace medals were diplomatic media: belts recorded relationships in beadwork; medals broadcast U.S. symbolism (“Peace and Friendship”) at councils. Both traveled from council grounds to museums, then back into community life and legal argument.
_(14779431751).jpg)
American treaty‑making stretches from independence diplomacy to trans‑Atlantic alliances and—from the U.S. point of view most importantly—to thousands of compacts with Native Nations that still carry legal force. The constitutional balance requires consensus, but history shows treaties can be bent by war, gold rushes, and elections. What endures is the core rule: when the United States gives its word by treaty, that word becomes law—and law has a long memory.