Katherine A. Hermes 21. Peace Treaties Between Colonial Powers and Indigenous Peoples in North America Abstract: Peace treaties between Native peoples and European colonial powers estab- lished nation-to-nation political relationships. They formulated rules for coexistence, concluded wars, and determined land cessions. Before the balance of power shifted away from Native peoples to the colonial powers in the eighteenth century, both sides conducted diplomacy according to indigenous protocols, into which colonial negotia- tors introduced the practice of signing of treaty documents. For two centuries eastern, indigenous, tribal nations found diplomatic means for survival in a new colonial world. Excluded from the Treaties of Paris in 1763, ending the French and Indian War, and in 1783, concluding the American Revolution, Native nations found themselves on the periphery of a Eurocentric Atlantic world. 1. Introduction Treaties are negotiated agreements between entities who recognize one another’s so- vereignty 1 and they came to define the nation-to-nation political relationships be- tween North American native peoples and the colonial powers. Precolonial intertribal diplomacy formed a basis for how Native people negotiated with colonial powers once they had contact. Treaties of peace formulated rules for coexistence, concluded wars, and stipulated land cessions. Before the balance of power shifted away from Native peoples to the European powers in the eighteenth century, both sides conducted di- plomacy according to indigenous protocols, into which colonial negotiators intro- duced the practice of signing of treaty documents. While not all treaty councils re- sulted in formal, written agreements, the introduction of writing was essential to the colonial powers’ subjugation of the indigenous population. During the colonial period a ‘treaty’ was the product of any diplomatic process be- tween two or more parties representing a governing body, regardless of whether such meetings included formal state actors or produced oral or written agreements. Land transactions between colonial and indigenous individuals who were non-state actors sometimes functioned as de facto if not de jure ‘peace treaties’. Since colonists and the colonial powers varied their stances on whether indigenous peoples had anything ap- proximating a legally recognizable state, it is more important to look at the process of negotiation and agreement for evidence of treaty-making than relying on modern na- 1 On treaties see also Chapter 18. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110591316-021