Think You Know US History? Think Again!

The United States has a rich history filled with both heartwarming and heart wrenching stories. Some of those stories are based in fact, while others - simply legend and lore. In an attempt to get a fuller picture of our history, ILTF has created an innovative project that examines the physical formation of the United States. Looking at US-Indian treaties, the very documents that made the land upon which we stand part of America, we can begin to understand the whole picture of our country’s formation. By supporting ILTF’s Treaty Signers Fund, you will be helping researchers make sense of the vast amount of scattered information on these critical events.

Here in Minnesota, there are stories just waiting to be told. In 1827, Dakota people returned from their seasonal hunting to find that Henry Sibley, manager of the American Fur Company, had raised the price of his goods by 300%. Expecting to trade for the provisions they needed for the coming year, the Dakota were instead thrust into a cycle of debt that led directly to the loss of their homeland, including the treaty that ultimately attempted to banish the Dakota from the territory.

Such incidents are completely absent in the commonly taught “American Myth” of how the US expanded across the continent. But short term business interests in land speculation, the fur trade, mining, and the plantation system profoundly shaped US-Indian relations. And those business interests were represented by government signers of the Indian treaties. The 2,600 men who represented the US in treaty negotiations secured hundreds of millions of acres of land for themselves, their families and their business partners – land that was sold to pioneers at a profit and includes the original sites for hundreds of cities and towns.

The Treaty Signers Project examines - for the first time - how business and family interests connect US treaty signers to one another, to US-Indian relations, and to the institutions that shape our economy today. The end result of the Project will be a powerful web site through which anyone can learn about the lives of the treaty signers, with background information on the families and businesses which shaped US Indian policy.

The American Myth presents “pioneers” as the driving force of America’s past. By contrast, the Treaty Signers Project presents the economic engines that actually drove US expansion –- interests that saw both Indian land and pioneers as sources of personal profit. Your gift to this innovative project will foster real discussion about our history as it actually was, not the idealized legends of westward expansion America celebrates today.