1885 Atkins Map of the United States Indian Reservations

An impressive 1885 map of the United States highlighting the location of Indian reservations, produced during the tenure of John DeWitt Clinton Atkins as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

A Closer Look

Indian reservations throughout are highlighted in orange and labeled in block lettering. Aside from the large Indian Territory (future Oklahoma), several other reservations loom especially large, including the Sioux Reservation, taking up much of today's South Dakota. Large portions of Montana are divided among the Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood, Blackfeet, and Crow, and the Navajo and White Mountain Reservations take up significant amounts of land in the Southwest. Many of the reservations seen here were later reduced or eliminated altogether.

Cities and towns are indicated, as are railroads, military outposts, and Indian Agencies. Three insets are situated along the bottom border that illustrate Alaska, the Mission Indian Reservations in California, and the northeastern corner of the Indian Territory.

Indian Territory

This map predates the division of the Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, and the subsequent elimination of the latter. The concept of an Indian Territory was the successor to the British Indian Reserve, which was established by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. After the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson and his successors viewed land west of the Mississippi River as available for the resettlement of Native Americans, which became official policy after the 1830 Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson. The Indian Territory was slowly whittled down as Americans moved west and more and more territories were formed. Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas all chipped away at land that had once belonged to Native Americans. The borders of modern-day Oklahoma, to which Indian Territory was eventually reduced, were established by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In 1890, the Oklahoma Organic Act created the Oklahoma Territory from the western half of the Indian Territory and opened the door for land runs on reservation land.

Native Americans in the Late 19th Century

By the time this map was produced, Native Americans faced immense odds in trying to maintain their traditional culture. The armed resistance of earlier decades was no longer a viable option and established migration patterns and lifeways were made impossible. The Grant Administration (1869 - 1877) saw peace overtures along with better oversight of the often-unscrupulous Indian Agents and other exploitative profiteers on the frontier as viable options. But Grant and subsequent presidents saw cultural assimilation as the best means of preserving peace, which led to boarding schools being established and run by Christian missionaries (who were deputized as Indian Agents) on reservations throughout the country. Nomadic peoples were sedentarized, indigenous languages and religious practice were banned in boarding schools (a contribution of Atkins during his tenure as Commissioner of Indian Affairs), and collective landholdings broken up into private plots to promote cultural assimilation.

Publication History and Census

This map was drafted by Paul Brodie, under the direction of John D. C. Atkins, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and was printed (photo-lithographed) by Norris Peters in Washington, D.C. It appeared in the 'Seventeenth annual report of the Board of Indian Commissioners' (Ex. doc. United States. Congress. House, 49th Congress, 1st session, no. 109, 109 49 1), which was published in 1886 by the Government Printing Office. Multiple editions of the map exist (including examples from 1892 and 1896 previously sold by us), which were generally published in annual reports on Indian affairs, and which can be compared to trace the evolution of reservation lands in the U.S. over time. The present edition is listing among the holdings of about thirty institutions in the OCLC.