Original papers, 1823-1833. Forsyth's incoming correspondence includes a long unsigned letter (1824) on the origins of the Arikara War and on the Missouri River fur trade by a writer at Fort Atkinson, Iowa, a “Mr. James” according to the endorsement; more than a dozen letters, 1825-1830, from William Clark, mainly on routine matters-licensing, accounts, and Forsyth's furloughs-with scattered references to treaties and to the Winnebago outbreak of 1827; several letters by Thomas L. McKenney, including one written in 1827 from Butte des Morts (Wisconsin) during the Winnebago unrest; and one letter by Pierre Menard (1829) on a site for treaty negotiation. Two drafts of letters by Forsyth to Joseph H. Vose, major of the Fifth U.S. Infantry, concern a personal dispute which Forsyth hinted might have to be settled by a duel.

Among other records are invoices for presents distributed to Indians, 1823-1825; lists of Sauk and Fox halfbreeds in 1824, with ages, names of parents, and place of residence; bonds for fur trade licenses issued to David and Moses D. Bates (1824), to Antoine Brisbois and Francis Bouthillier (1825), and to Ezekiel and James Lockwood (1825) with a letter listing the latters' merchandise for trade in the lead mining region near Prairie du Chien; passes for travel issued to Indians by Wabash agent John Tipton and by Forsyth, including one for Keokuk (1829); and the text of the treaty of Chicago (September 1833) with the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, accompanied by a list of claims submitted and accepted under terms of the treaty.

Also included are copies of land records, 1796-1809, for a Spanish tract west of the Mississippi granted to Julien Dubuque, with subsequent transfers involving Charles Gratiot, Auguste Chouteau, William Henry Harrison, and others; a list of American designations for ten Indian nations in the upper Mississippi and western Great Lakes regions, accompanied by the names by which each nation was known to other tribes and to the French; and a group of maps of river systems mainly in the upper Mississippi region.

Includes a document with several Native American languages (p. 60).