Isaac Mc Coy - Surveyor of Indian Territory

Surveyor of Indian Territory

The possibility of removing eastern Indians west of the Mississippi River was enhanced In 1825 when the Osage and the Kaw ceded large portions of their lands in Kansas and Oklahoma to the United States. In 1828, Congress authorized McCoy to lead an expedition to survey lands to which the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek of the Southeast could be relocated. McCoy also invited representatives of the Potawatomi and Odawa to join the expedition. With the unenthusiastic Indians, McCoy traveled through Kansas and Oklahoma laying out potential reservations for Indians and devising in his mind the organization of an Indian State.

In June 1829, McCoy moved his family to Fayette, Missouri. That fall, at his own expense, he carried out a survey on the Kaw lands and in 1830, with Kaw mixed blood Joseph James as his guide he surveyed and established the boundaries of a reservation for the Delaware tribe who were persuaded to move there from their territories in southern Missouri.

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which formally authorized the removal of eastern Indians to the West. For the next ten years, McCoy was engaged in surveying boundaries of reservations for more than twenty Indian tribes who moved west to present-day Kansas. Often they comprised small remnants of formerly powerful peoples. McCoy had hoped to be one of the three commissioners appointed to oversee Indian Territory, but he was passed over and his dreams of becoming the government’s chief representative to the Indian tribes were dashed.

Aware of the fraud, abuse, and neglect involved in the removal of Indians westward, McCoy rationalized that it was for the greater good of having Indian lands secured for them in perpetuity. Such "perpetuity" was to last little more than two decades.