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Show I REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFATRS. XXIII that right, was vested in that gorernment which might wnstitutionally exercise it. It was further settled in the ease of the Cherokee Nation e. The State of Georgia (5 Peters, p. 1) that the Indians had an unques-tionable and theretofore an unquestioned right to the lands they occu-pied until that right of occupancy was extinguished by voluntary eession to the Government; that they occupied lands to whieh the United States asserted a title, independent of their mill, whieh must take effect in respect of possession when their right of occnpancy ceased. Hence, the claim of the Government to the lands of the Indian tribes extends to the complete ultimate title, charged with the Indian right of possession and to the exclusive power of acquiring that right. (See Johnson v. &l'lntosh, 8 Wheat, 543; Fletcher v. Peek, 6 Cranch, 87 j Holden v. Joy, 17 Wall, 211 j Beecher v. Wetherly, 95 U. S., 517.) CESSIONS UNDER THE COLONIAL AND FEDERAL BOVERNBCENTS. During the colonial period charters and grants mere made by the erown of land in the occupancy of the Indians, knewu as their hunting grounds, which, from their habits and modes of life, was as much in their actual possession as the cleared fields of the whites. Their rights to its exclusive enjoyment in their own way and for their own purposes were always respected by the colonists until abandoned or eeded by them, their right of ocoupaney being protected by the political power of the colony and respected by the courts until extinguished, when the grantee took the encumbered fee (Clark u. Smith, 13 Peters, 195). Snch was the tenure of Indian lands recognized by the laws of the thirteen colonies. Prior to the articles of confederation the colonies, at different times and in aoeordance with the foregoing principle, whieh is recognized in the ease of the United States u. Clark (9 Peters, 168), entered into ne-gotiations with the various tribes ocenpying land within their respect-ive limits for the total extingnishment of their titles. South Carolina.-As early as 1721 South Carolina entered into treaty relations with the Cherokees for the eession of the land whieh they oc- ' cnpied between the Santee, Salnda, and Congaree Rivers on the east, and the Edisto River on the west. (See Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 46.) On the 24th of November, 1755, the Cherokees ceded to Great Britain their aforesaid right to the land occupied by them, between the Wateree and the Savannah rivers (see Hewat's History of South Caro-lina and Georgia, Vol. 11, pp. 203, 204); and again on the 20th of May, 1777, in a treaty with South Carolina and Georgia, they ceded their rights to the remainder, except a tract in the extreme northwestern portion, which was subsequently ceded to South Carolina by the treaty of March 22,181G (7 Ytats. p. 138, and Oolonial and State Laws, p. 182). Virginia.-On the 14th of October, 1768, the British superintendent of Indian affairs entered into negotiations with the Cherokees for a |
