The 1818 Chickasaw treaty: the Grand Master cleared his own title

SUMMARYThe 1818 Chickasaw treaty: the Grand Master cleared his own title (Nov 3, 2026)

RECORD (treaty text, Oct 19, 1818, Avalon Project)the U.S. commissioners were Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby. The Chickasaw gave up all land north of the 35th parallel between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, "near the Chickasaw Bluffs," for $20,000 a year for 15 years ($300,000 total).
Side payments written into the treaty: $150 cash each to named chiefs (Levi Colbert, Chinnubby, Teshuamingo and others); $100 each to military leaders (George Colbert and others); $1,089 to interpreter James Colbert to repay money taken from his pocket at a Baltimore theatre in June 1816; the Colbert family's private reservations confirmed

RECORD (Memphis histories)John Rice entered a paper claim to 5,000 acres at the fourth Chickasaw Bluff in 1783; John Overton bought it in 1794 and shared it with Andrew Jackson. That was a claim on land the Chickasaw had NOT ceded

PATTERNJackson, later Grand Master of Tennessee's Masons, held a paper claim on the bluff for 24 years, then sat as U.S. commissioner on the treaty that cleared the Chickasaw title to it. Within months his partners laid out "Memphis" on it (1819). Paper first, cash to individual chiefs, then the name. A paper war, not a conquest.
OPEN, needs deep research: the Chickasaw name for the bluff. Best source: the Chickasaw Nation's own A Chickasaw Historical Atlas (Stanley Nelson, Chickasaw Press), plus Chickasaw language resources from the nation's language department.