The Treaty of Turkeytown, also known as the Treaty with the Cherokee and the Treaty of Chickasaw Council House (Cherokee) was negotiated on 14 September 1816, between delegates of the former Cherokee Nation on the one part and Major General Andrew Jackson, General David Meriwether and Jesse Franklin, Esq., who served as agents of the United States in the capacity of "commissioners plenipotentiary", on the other part. Conducted following the Creek War, the initial meeting was held at the Chickasaw Council House and stipulated a further meeting on 28 September 1816, to be conducted at "Turkey's Town", on the Coosa River, near the present day town of Centre, in Cherokee County, Alabama. The treaty was ratified by the Cherokee Nation at Turkeytown[1] on 4 October 1816, and signed by Pathkiller, then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
The Treaty of Turkeytown ceded Cherokee lands in northwestern Alabama south of the Tennessee River and west of the Coosa River, 3500 square miles of land (2.24 million acres)[2] to the United States and provided for a one-time payment of $5,000 to the Cherokee to recompense for improvements that had made on the land; as well as an annuity of $6,000.00 per year for a term of ten years.
^Gordon, Thomas F. A Digest of the Laws of the United States: Including an Abstract of the Judicial Decisions Relating to the Constitutional and Statutory Law p. 756 (Philadelphia: Printed for the Author, 1827).
^Royce, Charles C. The Cherokee Nation, p. 83 (Piscataway: Aldine Transaction, 2009).
Centre, Alabama is the countyseat of Cherokee County, Alabama.
