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Show - . 34 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 162,. et sen>. Those white men who were adooted into Indian tribes, as above stated, in nearly all oases coritracted marriages with members of the tribe in which they had beoome ineor~oxnteda, nd the issue of theae marriayea were always regarded by I the Indims ns merubem of the tribe to whieh their 1ndi;n parent helonpdhy blood. Of course tba illcgitxmate iasue of white men and Indion wolben wuuld follow the status of the Indian mother. Fifth. Besides tho oases of white person8 adopted intoIndian tribes, many white men haye gone among the Indians and, without becoming sdopted, married members of the tribe aceordin-e to the Indian ouatom. While the authorities of the tribe in these oases always deemed and treatrd the issue of such marriages as members of the tribe, snd while such issue would seem, in the light of the decision of the cireuit I oourt for the northern district of Oregon in re ~ m i i l (e6 th Federal Reporter, N), not to be white persons in the sense in which that expression is used in the natural-ization laws of the United Statetes (section 2169, Revised Statutes), yet in the light of the rnle of common law as laid down in ez y w t a Reynolds (6th Dillon, 394) they are citizens of the United States in the sense that tbe courts of the United States would have iurisdiation to t r"s and -n uniah them for mimes committed bs. them in the Indian country. They ham, however, been uniformly treated by the executive of the Gov-ernment tss Indiana in all r e s~e c t si;n other words, as having a right by Meritence I to receive a oro rat* benefit from the nronertv of the triba to which their Indian I A * " parent belonged, both lands and funds. There appears to bnve been no adjudication of the rights of these persona, eom. monly known as half-breed. and mixed bloods, by the courts; but, under date of July 5,1856, Attorney-General Cushing expressed the opinion (7th Opinion, 46) that half-breeds (and in his opinion he seems to use the expressions half-breeds and mixed-bloods interchaur-re ablvl. should be treated bv the sxocutive as Indians in " ,, all respects so long as they retain their tribal relations. One of the most intelli-gent Indians knows in the history of om dodinga vith the Indian8 was John Ross, ; Cherokee chid, vho wm a hdf-breed, yet he-waa always treated as an Indian, rand his isdescendants are now regarded and treated as Indians. Sixth. Under the rule upon which a, family is constructed among civilized nations the predominant principle ia descent through the father. The father, is the head of the family. When a man marries, his wife separates Ker80If from her family and kindred and takes up her abode with the husband, assumes his name, and becomes subordinate, in a sense, to him. In many eases the eldest son becomes the heir, ' and in all social and political arrangements the relatiansbip through the fat+ is the dominant one. Among the North American Indians, however, the line of descent in many tribes (thongh not in all at the present day) is through the mother, and in many instances the wife and not the husband is recognized as the head of the family. Often when an Indian marries instead of taking his wife to his home he goes to hers and be-comes absorbed in her family. But even among tribes having descent in the male line there are notable snrvi~alrslso f "motlier right," aa it is called by some; for ex-ample, the Dakota mother-in-law (even among the Santees in 1871) oan take her daughter from the husband end give her to another men. This radical difference in tracing descent, establishing relationshi-a.. oonstitntine ' towns and communities, and determining ialheritanoe mist be taken into acconnti'n conatruing any question like that under diacrrssian. In his history of the Indians of Connecticut. De Forrest reoites that altbou-c h s el~icfvain~hiapm ong chtsu Iodiilus was nn h~rerliruryo nice, the OOUR of the rhief would nor inherit lunIe9s thrir mutitor wa* of nohlabloo~l. If" s:tja that thin coaton# was also in vomte amm-u the Iroauois s;nd the Indims of the Antilles, anddoubtless il~ttungm osr ur'rbe aLol.igines of ,\mvrica, and be eitrs the ~a8e0i~Lcs011o9f'h lonto-joshnck, the mriiisr cmnd Bnrhem oi rhr Sehnntics, whose nutno has drsren,lod to bnr times. who did nbt succeed to the chieftainahin of their father because thev were not of pure royal blood, their mother not being noble. |
