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Show REPORT OF THE. COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. LIX citizenship, and accepts its results so far as those claimants are con-cerned, who have gone into the nation since the 11th. of Angnat, 1886 (the date on which Agent Owen was instructed as to the eEect of said opinion), and also as to those who may hereafter enter ; but theDepart. , meut declines to be governed by the decisions of the commission as to those who went into the nation, claiming the rights of Cherokees, prior to that date. The status of such persons therefore remains unchanged. Many of them have been denied the rights of citizenship, and the . Uherokee authorities have requested the Department to remove them as intruders. This the Department declines to do, when they show prima facie that they are of Cherokee blood. The Cherokee commis-sion has declared some of these persons to b'e intruders, who loqated in the Cherokee Nation long prior to the 11th of August., 1886, claiming and believing that they were of Cherokee blood, and therefore entitled to share in the lands and annuities of the nation. They have in some instances made valuable improvements in the way of buildings and opening farms, and putting them in a state of cultivation. For theDe-partment summarily to eject these persons from the limits of the nition, without just and fair compensation for their improvements, would seem to be an unjust if not a heartless procedure. Some method by which these cases may be disposed of, and those claimants who have gone into the nation in good faith and are of Cherokee blood accorded their rights, or, if denied snch rights, paid for their improvements, should be provided by legislation, it being, as it appears, impossible to reach such result by mutual agreement. This subject should be considered by Congress at its next session. PREEDMEN IN THE CHICKASAW NATION. The report of Agent Owen represents the freedmen who live in the Chickasaw Nation as being in a deplorable condition. They are land-less in a territory which has 4,650,935 acres, and where t,he Chickasa.~ inhabitants are entitled to 775 acres per capita. They are without schools or school facilities. They are recognized neither as citizens of the United States nor as Chickasaws. In fact, as Agent Owen de-scribes their anomalous position, they are neither 6' fish, flesh, nor fowl." Nevertheless they are human beings, who are entitled to the sympathy and p.rotect,ion of the Government. By the third article of the treaty of 1866, the Choctaws and Chick-asaws, in consideration of the sum of $300,000, ceded to' the United States the territnry west of the 98th degree of west longitude, known as the " lased district," with the provision that this $300,000 should be invested and held by the United States, in trust for said nation, at not less than 5 per cent. interest, until the legislatures of the two nations shouln respectively make such laws as might be necessary- To give persona of Urican dement, resident in aaid nations at the dste of the treaty of Fort Smith, and their descendants heretofore held in slavery among said nations oll $he rights, privileges, and immunities, including the right of suffrage of oitizens |
