Pacts and treaties have changed the course of history. In the United States, land treaties tripled the size of the nation. Treaties with America's first peoples -- the Indian tribes -- transformed the country from a sparsely settled land of many nations into one nation with industrial centers and a growing European population. Beginning in the nineteenth century, world leaders forged treaties that have improved the treatment of people caught in the tragedy of war and that limit the use of war's weapons. All the pacts and treaties detailed in the series have made their mark on the world.

Native Americans signed their first treaties granting land to English colonists in the 1600s. From that time until 1871 when the Congress of the United States decreed that Indians could no longer issue treaties, the native tribes made hundreds of pacts with the settlers who had invaded their lands. The treaties guaranteed the Indians peace, European goods and supplies, money and land reserved for them alone. In return, the Indian nations turned over millions of acres to the land-hungry settlers until, finally, there was no more land to sell and nowhere for the Indians to call home. The history of these treaties is marked by greed and betrayal that ultimately led to the destruction of the native American nations and to the growth of a nation of immigrants.