Title: Cessions of land by Indian tribes to the United States
Description: This document of under 15 pages – the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80 – has two purposes.

First, it contains a short discussion of the extent to which the U.S. Government had recognized Indian title to lands they occupied, and how that recognition was reflected in the many treaties that were negotiated for Indian lands, beginning with the formation of the U.S. Government and progressing through the first quarter of the 19th century. Second, the document contains a map of Indiana with 54 land cessions by Indian tribes marked upon it, and short descriptions within the document of each of those cessions.
Subjects: Government relations, Indian land transfers, Indians of North America, Land tenure
Places: Indiana