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Show REPORT OF TEE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. LIII 'with their part of the agreement.. In fact, the Choctaws and Chielra-saws allowed the two years to elapse without granting the freedmen the rights and privileges therein specified, and up to this date harefailed to take action thereon, and thereby have forfeited all claim to tbe moneg-s adranced therein. Neither did the government, within the ninety days from the expiration of the said two years, remove, or attempt to remore, said freedmen, willing or nuwilling, from the said nations, nor have any of said freedmen regoved themselves; but all remain, as provided in the fourth article of the treaty. One of the embarrassments in the settlement of this question is that provision of the tre,aty which requires joint or concurrent action by the legislative eouncils of the two nations. The Chickasaws desiring the removal of all freedmen from their country, persistently refuse to concur in any legislation granting their freedmen t.he rights, privi-leges, and immunities of citizens of said nation, while the Choctan7s show a disposition to adopt all the requirements of said third art,i-ole of the treaty. An act to exteud to freedmen-the privileges of citizenship was in-troduced in the Choctaw council in 1873, and was i~assedb y the house, but failed in the senate. At a later period, in 1875, Hou. J. P. 0. Shanks was appointed a commissioner to visit these nations and secure an adjustment of the status of persons of African descent residiug in the Choetaw and Chickasaw Nations, reference being had to the provisions of the third and fourth articles of the aforesaid treaty ; but., meeting the same difficulty, was unable to effect terms satisfactory to both nations. Not satisfied or disheartened by these failures, the Choctaw national council, at its legislatire session of 1880, passed a memorial to'the Gov-ernment of the United States, which was approved November 2,1880,. by the principal chief, J. F. MeCurtain, wherein it is proposed to adopt their freedmen as citizens upon the basis of the third article of the treaty oE 1866, and they ask the government to enact the necessary legida-tion to authorize them to adopt said action without the. co-operation of the Chickasaw Nation. The only objection to this legislation comes from the freedmen themselves, who ask to be granted all the pri~ileges accruing to them under these treaty stipulations, bnt.protest against beiug placed under the jurisdiction of the Choctaw laws. These freedmen are upon the lands not from their own option, have had no voice in these treaty provisions, have made valuable improve-ments in the country of their enforced adoption, and do not now desire v to leave that country, and should be protected in a.ll their rights in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nation- by the adoptiorl separately of such acts by each co~~neai ls will, with the approval of Congress, give the freedmen l i ~ thger eon forty acres of land each and all the righta and privileges which were contemplated to be given them by t,he treat.y. r . |