Middle Temple Historical Society | Legal Memory, Archival Truths, and Indigenous Rights: Reconstructing Early American Treaty Frameworks Through the Middle Temple’s Historical Record [ONLINE]

To mark the two hundred and fifty‑third anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, the Middle Temple Historical Society will host two events recognising this significant milestone in global legal and constitutional history. This is our first event.

During the late seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century, the English Government entered into numerous treaties with Indigenous Nations in North America. These treaties, often accompanied by detailed maps, acknowledged and delineated the territorial lands of various tribes. After the War of 1812, President Thomas Jefferson directed United States cavalry officers to collect the tribes’ copies of these treaties and maps. These materials were never returned and subsequently disappeared from the historical record.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne has recently identified approximately three thousand documents in England, including treaty counterparts, maps, and extensive correspondence. These materials define with considerable precision the lands of several Indigenous Nations, including the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), the Five Nations, and the Iroquois Confederacy.

During the course of this research, it became apparent that many of the Treaties and related correspondence were drafted by barristers practising in England at the time. Subsequent archival work has confirmed that a substantial number of these lawyers were Members of Middle Temple. This is consistent with the Inn’s historical influence: six Middle Templars signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and seven were signatories to the United States Constitution in 1787.

To commemorate this discovery and its wider constitutional significance, the Middle Temple Historical Society will host an event in the Parliament Chamber.

The event will be introduced by Master Brendan Finucane KC.

Assistant District Attorney Arvo Mikkanen, President of the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association and himself a member of the Kiowa Nation, will deliver a thirty minute lecture examining the historical treaties concluded between the British Crown and Native American tribes, the subsequent abrogation of those treaties by the United States Government in the early nineteenth century, the ensuing Indian Wars, and the jurisprudence of the Oklahoma courts concerning disputes over Tribal land rights.

Master Finucane KC and Victoria Hildreth, Assistant Archivist at Middle Temple, will provide a fifteen minute overview of the individual treaties and present the findings of their research into the members of the Inn who were involved in their drafting

Professor David Baker will address this research dimension directly, offering an analytical account of the methodologies employed and the preliminary findings that have begun to illuminate the Inn’s historical engagement with these diplomatic instruments. The success of the project as a whole is fundamentally dependent upon sustained, rigorous archival research. This evidential foundation is essential not only for reconstructing the historical context of the treaties themselves but also for understanding the legal culture in which they emerged. His contribution will underscore the scholarly character of the project and the extent to which its conclusions rest upon careful, source‑based inquiry.

Student members (including transferring lawyers) must attend the entire lecture in order to be awarded the Qualifying Session.