present-day northern Indiana. Emerging leader After the death of his uncle, Chief Pacanne, in 1815, fifty-five-year-old Richardville emerged as principal chief of the Miamis. Francis Godfroy also joined Richardville as an influential leader of the Miamis. Due to the two métis (mixed blood) men's previous relationships with federal officials, they became treaty-signing chiefs for the Miamis, interpreters at treaty negotiations, and brokers of tribal business affairs. Richardville and Godfroy recognized the value of land and the potential trade profits in an American capitalist society. Together, they worked as intermediaries to protect the Miami tribal interests, as well as their own. The value of the Miami lands and the arrival of pioneer settlers in what became central Indiana in the early 1800s gave Richardville and the other Miami leaders additional leverage in negotiating sales of their lands. Richardville proved to be a shrewd negotiator on behalf of the Miami people, in addition to increasing his own personal wealth and landholdings in the process. Richardville and the other Miami leaders also delayed treaties calling for the removal of the Miamis from Indiana. Treaty of St. Marys, 1818 Richardville signed the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818), which ceded most of the Miami lands south of the Wabash River in central Indiana to the U.S. government. The treaty's harsh terms were punishment for the Miami people's lack of support to the United States during its War of 1812. The Miamis eventually received 6.4 cents an acre for their land and an increase in their permanent annuity payment to $18,400, among other concessions of goods and services. Richardville and the other Miami leaders also negotiated with federal government officials to exempt from the land cessions an area known as the Miami National Reserve, a tract of land encompassing , approximately , in central Indiana, east of present-day Kokomo and northeast of Indianapolis. Because of its location near proposed highway and canal routes, the Miami National Reserve was one of the most potentially valuable pieces of land for commercial development in Indiana. The remaining Miami lands not ceded to the federal government were divided into six village reserves and 24 individual land allotments. As part of the terms of the treaties with American Indians, individual land allotments were granted primarily to treaty signatories and métis tribal members such as Richardville, allegedly to “reinforce the European rather than the Indian concept of land use.” Although these individual