On October 1, 1863 the Ruby Valley Treaty was signed between the Western Shoshone Nation and the Nation of the United States of America under President Abraham Lincoln and ratified later by President U.S. Grant to include the conclusion of the part contained within said treaty on the gifts promised by the U.S. Govt. to the Shoshone people. At no other time, up to this present date, has this treaty ever been legally ratified or modified.
On October 31, 1864 the Territory of Nevada became the State of Nevada and thus the motto: 'Battle Born' was established because the state was created during the Civil War - or the War Between the States.

Questions:
How much of the Territory of Nevada was included to comprise the State of Nevada?
When the territory was converted into statehood was the Shoshone Nation taken into consideration?
Were those who endorsed the territory into statehood aware that they had a seperate nation running through the middle of the state which embodied over 86% of this territory and was protected by the Ruby Valley Treaty signed previously by the President of the United States?
They had a year to figure it out. What agency did the surveys on these lands and how did they arrive at their conclusion?

Was this the first violation of the treaty by the U.S. Government?

ULYSSES S. GRANT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. TO ALL AND SINGULAR TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETINGS:

(The above paragraph appears on the Amended Treaty of 1866).


Treaty of Peace and Friendship made at Ruby Valley, in the Territory of Nevada, this first day of October, A.D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, between the United States of America, represented by the undersigned commissioners, and the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, represented by their Chiefs and Principal Men and Warriors, as follows:

ARTICLE 1
Peace and friendship shall be hereafter established and maintained between the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation and the People and Government of the United States; and the said bands stipulate and agree that hostilities and all depredations upon the emigrant trains,the mail and telegraph lines, and upon the citizens of the United States within their country, shall cease.

ARTICLE 2
The several routes of travel through the Shoshone Country, now or hereafter used by white men, shall be forever free, and unobstructed by the said bands, for the use of the government of the United States, and of all emigrants and travellers under its authority and protection, without molestation or injury from them. And if depredations are at any time committed by bad men of their nation, the offenders shall be immediately taken and delivered up to the proper officers of the United States, to be punished as their offences shall deserve; and the safety of all travellers passing peaceably over either of said routes is hereby guarantied by said bands.

Military posts may be established by the President of the United States along said routes or elsewhere in their country; and station houses may be erected and occupied at such points as may be necessary for the comfort and convenience of travellers or for mail or telegraph companies.

ARTICLE 3
The telegraph and overland stage lines having been established and operated by companies under the authority of the United States through a part of the Shoshone country, it is expressly agreed that the same may be continued without hindrance, molestation, or injury from the people of said bands, and that their property and the lives and property of passengers in the stages and of the employes of the respective companies, shall be protected by them. And further, it being understood that provision has been made by the government of the United States for the construction of a railway from the plains west to the Pacific ocean, it is stipulated by the said bands that the said railway or its branches may be located, constructed, and operated, and without molestation from them, through any portion of country claimed or occupied by them.

ARTICLE 4
It is further agreed by the parties hereto, that the Shoshone Country may be explored and prospected for gold and silver, or other minerals; and when mines are discovered, they may be worked, and mining and agricultural settlements formed, and ranches established whenever they may be required. Mills may be erected and timber taken for their use, as also for building and other purposes in any part of the country claimed by said bands.

ARTICLE 5
It is understood that the boundaries of the country claimed and occupied by said bands are defined and described by them as follows:

On the North by Wong-goga-da Mountains and Shoshone River Valley; on the West by Su-non-to-yah Mountains or Smith Creek Mountains; on the South by Wi-co-bah and the Colorado Desert; on the East by Po-ho-no-be Valley or Steptoe Valley and Great Salt Lake Valley.

The said bands agree that whenever the President of the United States shall deem it expedient for them to abandon the roaming life, which, they now lead, and become herdsmen or agriculturalists, he is hereby authorized to make such reservations for their use as he may deem necessary within the country above described; and they do also hereby agree to remove their camps to such reservations as he may indicate, and to reside and remain therein.

ARTICLE 7
The United States, being aware of the inconvenience resulting to the Indians in consequence of the driving away and destruction of game along the routes travelled by white men, and by the formation of agricultural and mining settlements, are willing to fairly compensate them for the same; therefore, and in consideration of the preceding stipulations, and of their faithful observance by the said bands, the United States promise and agree to pay to the said bands of the Shoshonee nation parties hereto, annually for the term of twenty years,the sum of five thousand dollars in such articles, including cattle for herding or other purposes, as the President of the United States shall deem suitable for their wants and condition, either as hunters or herdsmen. And the said bands hereby acknowledge the reception of the said stipulated annuities as a full compensation and equivalent for the loss of game and the rights and privileges hereby conceded.

ARTICLE 8
The said bands hereby acknowledge that they have received from said commissioners provisions and clothing amounting to five thousand dollars as presents at the conclusion of this treaty.

Done at Ruby Valley the day and year above written.

James W. Nye
James Duane Doty
Te-moak, his x mark
Mo-ho-a
Kirk-weedgwa, his x mark
To-nag, his x mark
To-so-wee-so-op, his x mark
Sow-er-e-gah, his x mark
Po-on-go-sah, his x mark
Par-a-woat-ze, his x mark
Ga-ha-dier, his x mark
Ko-ro-kout-ze, his x mark
Pon-ge-mah, his x mark
Buck, his x mark

Witnesses:
J. B. Moore, Lieutenant-Colonel Third Infantry California Volunteers
Jacob T. Lockhart, Indian Agent Nevada Territory
Henry Butterfield, Interpreter


Ratified June 26, 1866
Proclaimed Oct. 21, 1869


NOTE: To view a photocopy of this treaty please Click Here.
In Addition: We have taken the liberty to correct mispellings and typos where necessary - being those of words jammed or run together only to make the reading of this treaty easier. We have not changed the wording or structure of the above document in any way, shape or form other than that described.
Staff

Aboriginal Period Affiliation

The term aboriginal is used here to refer to those people who are recognized by the U.S. government as having possession of land at the time it was lost to the United States. For many Native American groups this transfer involved a treaty negotiated between their people and the government of the United States. For many other Native American people, however, they simply were moved away from their aboriginal lands without formal transference of title. These two unique processes of land loss produced two types of aboriginal period cultural affiliations for Native Americans, which are termed here (1) treaty-tribes and (2) land-claim tribes.

Tribe is used here to refer to the aboriginal inhabitants of territory lost to the U.S. Federal government. The term tribe is commonly used as a gloss for a variety of Native American social structures that existed aboriginally. Actually, few aboriginal Native American peoples were organized as a tribe, if the technical meaning of this term is used. Most cultural anthropologists would call aboriginal Native American people an ethnic group. In the following discussion the term tribe is viewed as meaning something like an ethnic group. It is important to make this distinction because not all of the people from any particular Native American ethnic group participated in the tribalization process. Representatives of the U.S. government often organized Native American ethnic groups by region. This process often occurred without the full participation of the people. Normally some ethnic group members were left without any tribal membership. Today, there are many Native people who do not belong to a formally recognized tribe or Native organization (see Chapter One). These people are usually referred to as not Federally acknowledged peoples; nonetheless, they remain Native peoples. Some of these Native people are seeking Federal acknowledgement and others are not. The cultural concerns of not Federally acknowledged people need to be considered during most types of Native American consultation.

Treaty-Tribes
Native Americans who lost control over some or all of the lands they occupied at the beginning of the historic period to the U.S. government are called here treaty-tribes. The term is a useful distinction for DoD installations seeking to understand cultural affiliation because there are a variety of primary references listing U.S. Federal treaties, specifying the lands considered under the treaty, and identifying the Native American group involved in the treaty. While it is relatively easy to identify treaty lands and tribes, most aboriginal lands were not transferred to the United States by treaty.

Land-Claims Tribes
Most Native American people can be classified as Land-Claims tribes, because they lost control over their lands to Euroamericans, but no treaty was ever signed. In most cases, these Native Americans simply were moved off aboriginal lands by force and the lands were occupied by non-Indian settlers (Sutton 1985). The U.S. Federal government created the Indian Claims Commission (ICC) in 1946 (60 Stat. 1049) charging it with adjudicating the claims of Native Americans for lands lost. After three decades of legal action, a map was prepared that listed the lands considered and the associated Native American people. The ICC produced a multicolored fold-out map entitled "Indian Land Area Judicially Established" as part of its final report (ICC 1978, Sutton 1985:12-13). This ICC map is a useful (but not definitive) tool for identifying the cultural affiliation for most Native Americans to aboriginal lands.

To summarize, both treaty and ICC documents can be used to begin to determine which Native American ethnic groups occupied certain lands when these were lost to Euroamerican society through encroachment or the Federal government through treaty. It must be remembered, however, that both treaties and ICC processes only establish which Native American group lived on a segment of land at the time it was lost to non-Indian peoples, and neither identifies pre-existing Native groups who lived on the land. Furthermore, few land areas were covered by treaty and few treaty lands were surveyed to make reference maps geographically accurate. The ICC process also did not address lands jointly used or claimed by more than one Indian ethnic group, so that many lands were not designated as belonging to any Indian ethnic group (Sutton 1985:112). Finally, treaties and ICC claims rarely specified the contemporary Native American group or tribe who would be culturally affiliated with the land in question. Given these limitations, the process of establishing cultural affiliation should include a search of treaties and ICC documents, but it should not be limited to Native ethnic groups found in these documents.