The U.S.-Indian treaties bear more than 10,000 signatures of representatives from Indigenous nations. While the U.S. signers of treaties represented a single economic and political system with a consistent goal (acquire Indigenous resources), the story of Indigenous treaty signers is more complex. Scores of Indigenous nations signed treaties with the U.S. Each nation features a distinctive history, language, social structure, and political system, and each has pursued its distinctive interests through agreements with other nations (both colonialist and Indigenous).

Within this complex framework, individual Indigenous treaty signers had their own relationships to the cultural institutions of their nations. Some were hereditary leaders, some achieved leadership positions through political measures; some were authorized collectively to represent their nation at treaties, others represented factions within their nations; others were appointed by the U.S. For those who signed more than one treaty, the relationship to their nation’s political structure might change over time. In this and countless other ways, the identities of Indigenous signers open a window on the evolving, complicated histories of Indigenous nations during the treaty-making era.