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Show 156 REPORT OF THE OOMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. into an agreement with representatives of the Cherokee Nation for the same purpose. These agreementv were both ratified by acts of March 1, 1900, and can be found in 31 Statutes at Large, pages 861 and 848, respectively. The Creek agreement except section 36 was approved by the Creek council May 25, 1901, and the President issued his proclamation June 25,1901, declaring that the agreement had been duly confirmed and that all of its provisions had become law. The Cherokee agreement provided that it should be of full force and effect "if mtified by a majority of the votes cast by the members" of the tribe at an election to be held for that purpose. This agree-ment was defeated April 29, 1901. lmmediately after the rejection of the agreement the council of the Cherokee Nation at a special session, passed an act, which was approved by the principal chief May 11, 1901, which provided for the appoint-ment of a commission to negotiate witb the commission to the Five Civilized Tribes relative to framing another agreement pertaining to the distribution of the lands and other property of the Cherokee Nation among its citizens. The mt was submitted to the Department May 31 by Inspector Wright for theapproval of the President. Office report of June 8 recommended that it be not approved, since an agree-ment dated January 14,1899, with the Cherokee Nation, which had been confirmed by the nation and submitted to Congress, had failed to receive action by Congress, and since the ratified agreement of April 9, 1900, had been defeated by the Cherokees. This act of the council was disapproved by the President June 11, 1901. There is at this time no agreement between the Government and the Cherokee Nation relative to the distribution of the land and other property of that nation among its individual citizens, and all work in the Cherokee Nation under the jurisdiction of the Dawes Commission, or other officers stationed in the Indian Territory, is being rarried on under the provisions of the Cnrtis Act and subsequent acts of Congress. February 7, 1901, the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes entered into an agreement with the Choctaws and Chickasaws for the purpose of fixing a date after which no name should be added to the rolls of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations; but the agreement not onl"v fixed that date hut treated of other matters also. The a0~ reement was forwarded to this of3ce.b~th e Department February 15,1901, and was informally returned to the Department February 21, at which time itr provisions, and especially the onsatisfactory ones, were fully dis-cussed by the Assistant Attorney-General on the part of the Depart-ment, Mr. Breckenridge, representing the commission, John F. McMurray, one of the attorneys for the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, and myself. I February 23, the Department forwarded to Congress the original |