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Show OKLAHOMA. 209 doned all claims to their lands in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina, on condition of receiving a fee simple to this land, witnessed by a patent from the President. This title has been twice pronounced valid by the Supreme Court, and recognized in eight solemn treaties. Could title to land be more perfect? In 1860, they were, as a community, the wealthiest people in the West. Single herders owned stock to the value of a hundred thou-sand dollars. In this mild climate and upon these rich prairies cattle multiplied rapidly. There was soon no land " running to waste," for all was utilized as pasture. Many white men sought citizenship or married Cherokee girls, and were adopted, and the advance of the Nation was healthful, natural and rapid. In 1865 their country was almost a waste; the people in extreme poverty. But they came back from the war and sadly went to work again. Now it is proposed, because part of them joined the Confed-erates, that all shall lose their present title and take their chances under a new allotment. The Indian Territory contains about 70,000 square miles one-third very fertile, a third or more fit only for pasture- lands, and the remainder, the westward portion, comparatively a desert. The four little governments Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole are republican in form ; over all of them extends a sort of Federal protectorate. At least twenty little remnants of tribes have been adopted into these nations, such as the Quawpaws, Senecas, Wyan-dottes, and Delawares. Their total is nearly as follows : CHEKOKEE NATION. Full bloods ....... 8,000 Mixed 4,000 Freed men ....... 1,500 Whites married in or adopted .... 500 Delawares ....... 900 Shawnees ....... 700 Wyandottes ....... 400 Quawpaws ....... 200 Senecas 100 Total Cherokee Nation .... 16,300 To which should be added some 2,000 Cherokees now in North Carolina, who are desirous of settling here, and for whose removal the Nation is making provisions, bringing the whole number up to about 18,000. I do not here include those new tribes west of 96, not yet formally incorporated. 14 |