Trade and Intercourse Acts
The Trade and Intercourse Acts were a series of legislative measures enacted by the United States government from 1790 to 1834, aimed at regulating trade and relations between Native Americans and European American settlers. These acts emerged from concerns that unchecked westward expansion and private trading could incite conflict on the frontier. The initial act in 1790 established a system for licensing traders and set penalties for unauthorized trading, while subsequent acts reinforced and expanded these regulations, including defining Indian territories and promoting cultural assimilation through the distribution of goods.
Over time, the acts evolved to address the increasing influx of settlers and aimed to delineate boundaries for Native American lands. The 1834 act marked a significant shift, as it prohibited liquor in Indian territory and allowed the federal government to intervene in intertribal conflicts to protect the fur trade. This progression illustrates a complex relationship between the U.S. government, Native Americans, and settlers, highlighting attempts at both regulation and control. The Trade and Intercourse Acts reflect the historical context of the era, underscoring the tensions between expansionist policies and the rights of Indigenous peoples.
Trade and Intercourse Acts
Date: 1790-1834
Tribes affected: Pantribal
Significance: These acts were efforts by the U.S. government to restrain private settlement and enterprise by European Americans in Indian territory; the restrictions eroded as a part of the market revolution of the nineteenth century
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the United States government feared that rapacious private traders and land-grabbing settlers were creating resentment among Native Americans that could lead to war on the frontier of white settlement. Therefore, the government sought to prevent the wholesale migration of white settlers westward to lands controlled by Indians, regulate the trade in furs between Indians and European Americans, and acculturate Indians to Euro-American norms. The government hoped that these efforts would preserve peace between Indians and European Americans. The vehicles for these goals were the successive Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts. The first Trade and Intercourse Act was passed in 1790 and was scheduled to expire at the end of the congressional session of 1793. Before expiration, a new Trade and Intercourse Act was passed in 1793. Further laws were enacted in 1796, 1799, and 1802. The 1802 act was made permanent; it stood until 1834.
The Trade and Intercourse Acts built upon precedents established by the Continental Congress in an ordinance of August 7, 1786. The Ordinance of 1786 empowered the federal government to issue licenses to United States citizens allowing them to reside among or trade with Indians. Like the later Trade and Intercourse Acts, the ordinance was an assertion of federal over state power in the regulation of Indian affairs.
The Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 provided for the licensing of private traders and outlined the penalties for trading without a license. The act of 1790 also detailed the punishments for crimes committed by whites against Indians. The act of 1793 reiterated the provisions of the 1790 act in stronger terms and further authorized the distribution of goods to Indians to promote acculturation to Euro-American mores. In response to the continuing influx of white settlers, the act of 1796 delineated the boundaries of territories belonging to Indians, the first such delineation by the federal government. The acts of 1799 and 1802 were substantially similar to the act of 1796. The acts impacted Native American and white relations during this time period.
In 1834, the federal government for the last time passed an Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. The 1834 act defined Indian territory as all lands west of the Mississippi River excluding the states of Missouri and Louisiana and the territory of Arkansas. The 1834 act banned liquor from the trade and outlawed white fur trappers from operating in Indian territory. Unlike any of the previous acts, however, the 1834 law empowered the federal government to use force to stop intertribal wars in order to protect the interests of fur trade companies. Ironically, a series of acts that began in 1790 by reining in white traders in order to preserve peace ended in 1834 by policing Indians in order to protect traders.