Treaty of Washington with the Ottawa, etc. (1836)

Summary

The Treaty of Washington, signed on 28 March 1836 and proclaimed on 27 May, is the earliest treaty in this corpus that names the Beaver islands directly. It is a federal agreement with the Ottawa and associated nations, published at 7 Statutes 491. Article Third says that “The Beaver islands of Lake Michigan” are for the use of the Beaver-island Indians for five years.

Beaver Island provisions

The treaty’s first article cedes the described lands to the United States. The third article then makes a specific reservation: “The Beaver islands of Lake Michigan for the use of the Beaver-island Indians.” Its schedule names Kainwaybekis and Pazhikwaywitum among the Beaver-island signatories or representatives. Those names are preserved here as the treaty’s spelling; the corpus does not yet contain an Indigenous-authored identification of the people behind them.

The five-year term is a feature of this instrument’s text. It should not be collapsed into a claim that Anishinaabe presence on the islands ended in 1841: the Anishinaabe presence in the archipelago article documents continuous presence and the limitations of the settler record.

Open questions

• The archive needs a diplomatic scan or a federal publication scan alongside the Oklahoma State treaty transcription for page-level comparison.
• The corpus does not yet connect Kainwaybekis or Pazhikwaywitum to verified person or family articles.
• The relationship between this five-year reservation and later treaty provisions, including the 1855 Detroit treaty, needs a dedicated legal and historical study.

See also

• Treaty of Detroit with the Ottawa and Chippewa (1855)
• Anishinaabe presence in the archipelago
• Beaver Island archipelago