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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 39 Five Civilieed Tribes Commissioa-In the annual report of this office for 1894 an account was given of the appointment and instructions of the commission to negotiate with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw Muscogee (or Creek), and Seminole nations, commonly known as the Five Civilized Tribes, in the Indian Territory. The commission was authorized by section 16 of the act of Mmch 3,1893 (27 Stats., 645). The act of 1893 provided for but three commissioners, but by a clause in the act of March 2,1895 (28 Stats., 910,939), authority was given for the appointment of two additional members of the commission, so that it now numbers five. In the last annual report of this office, under the title of "Intruders in the Cherokee Nation," mention was made of the provision contained in the Indian appropriation act of June 10, 1896 (29 Stab., 339), whereby the commission was required to investigate and determine the rights of applicants for citizenship in the Five Civilized Tribes and to make complete census rolls of the citizens of those tribes. No rolls of citizens have yet been filed in this office, as required by the law, and it is presumed that the commission 'has not completed them. From the character of the work and the complications pertaining to citizenship qnrstions, the preparation of these rolls would entail great labor and would be, of necessity, a slow and tedious process. As stated on page 72, the eommission completed its investigation of citizen~hipap plications on December 6,1896, but no detailed statement of this work has been received in this ofice. By far the most important results yet arising out of the labors of this commission have been the agreements negotiated by them with the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. The first agreement was concluded on Derember 18,1896, and was made with the representatives of the Choctaw Nation alone, the Chickasaws refusing to agree to its terms. April 23,1897, another agreement ,was ooncluded to which both the Chickasaw and Choctaw represeutatives were parties. This agreement was transmitted by the commission to this office with its report of April 23,1897, and it was forwarded to the Department April 27,1897. May 6, the Department returned it "for immediate report and recommenda-tion," and May 12 the office returning it to the Department reported as follows: The diversity and magnitude of interesbexistiugin these two nations, covering as they do some ll,338,000 acres of land, and having a popu-lation according to the Eleventh Census of 14,560 Indians, and 100,000, approximately, of whites and others, engaged as they are innearly every kind of husiness and industrv. make i t a difficult ~roblemto solve. ~hrrefible,i t goes without sayi&g that it would he almost i~nposaiblet o flame an aereement uatiifactory to all,or out of which some of 1110 per-sons so var';ouslv affected could not draw forth a seeminzlv reasonable grievance. To &rive at just what these points of objectro; are, if any may hereafter seem to exist, would of course bring about the necessity of all interests being heard. At present no objections to this agreement have been filed in this office; therefore, so far as known, it is satisfactory to those persons having interests in the country or who may in my manner he affected by it. |
