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Show I . COMMISSIOXER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. xxxi ! THE INDIAN CRIXES ACT. Legislation of this kind would supplement that contained in sectio~l 9 of the Indian appropriation act of March 3, 1885, known as "the In-dian crimes act," which de6.lies what the Sopreme Court describes as two conditions under which Indians may be punished for the crimes of murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burg-lary, and larceny. The first of these con(litions is where the offense is I committed within the limits of a Territorial government, whether on or 1 off an Indian reservation. The second condition is where the offense is committed by one Indian against the perxon or property of another, wit.hin the limits of a State of the Union, but on an Indian reservation. In this case, of which the State and its tribunals would have jurisdiction if the offense werecommitted by a white man outside an Indian reserva-tion, the courts of the United States are to exercise jurisdiction as if the offense had been committed at some place within the exclusive jurisdic-tion of the United States. In the case of the United Ntates v. Kagawaa and Another, Indians, the Supreme Court has decided that section 9, in both its branches, is valid and constitutional; that while the Government of the United States has heretofore recognized in the Indian tribes a state of semi-ivdependence and pupilage, it has the right and authority, instead of controlling them* by treaties, to govern them by acts of Congress ; that the States have no power over them, so long as they maintain their tribal relations;: and that the Indians owe no allegiance to a State within which their reser~ationm ay be established, and the State gives them no protection. Under this section, several Indians have been tried and convicted by Territorial courts of the crime of murder committed within the Territories on Indian reservations; and the auestion of the right of Territorial courts to tr.v such cases has been raised. In the case of two Papago Indians, named Ferina and Quijatoca, of the Pima Agency, Arizona, and in that of an Indian named Keskuda (or Zacate) of the Nescalero Agency, New Mexico, tried and convicted of murder in Terri-torial courts, and sentenced to be hanged, respites have beer1 obtained; so that this que~tionm ay be hken to the Supreme Court for its decision. The point made in these cases is that no jurisdiction has been conferred by section 9 upon courts established by the laws of the Territorieu; that if a murder be committed by a white man on an Indian reservation, situated within the limits of a Territory, the United States court and not the Territorial court has jurisdiction over the offense ; that since the act provides that an Indian committing, within a Territory and on an Indian reservation, any of the crimes named in section 9, '&shall be tried therefor in the same courts and in the same manner and ahall be ~ubieoto the same neualties as are other -n crsous char-ee d with the com-mission of said crimes, respectively," and as the crime in question waa , |