On February 15, 1837, Congress ratified two treaties removing eight Indigenous nations from their homelands in the Midwest. The treaties extended the western boundary of the United States and added 2,000,000 acres of territory to the state of Missouri, where slavery was permitted.

For hundreds of years, the Platte region—which included the area bordering the U.S. at the northwest corner of Missouri—served as the ancestral homelands for the Iowa, Sauk, and Fox nations, as well as the Oto, Omaha, Missouri, and Santee Sioux, and Yankton Sioux tribes.

In 1830, the federal government promised by treaty to keep the Platte region reserved for Indigenous peoples. However, upon discovering the “first rate lands” of the Platte region near the Missouri River and to accommodate the demand for western expansion by white settlers, Congress passed a resolution to proceed with forcibly renegotiating the treaty with tribal leaders, and President Andrew Jackson—who signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830—presented a new set of treaties to annex the region.

In addition to removing Indigenous groups, these two treaties altered the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by adding territory to the state of Missouri where slavery was permitted.

As a result of the government forcibly removing Indigenous groups from their homelands to unsettled land in the West, many thousands of Indigenous people died or were killed fleeing their homes in a journey known as the Trail of Tears.