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Show REPORT OF TEE COMMISSIONER OY. I NDIAN AFFAIRS. LXXVII General be requested to wcure tbe enforcement of the award and ordir of the aforesaid wurt. On the 31st of Angust, 1586, thjs office sub-mitted a further report, recommending that Hon. Jesse J. Yeates be appointed assistant United. States attorney, to proceed to North Caroliua to assist in the acuustment of said award; and any and all other questions that might present themselves in connection with its settle-ment. Mr. Yeates was appoiuted as recommended on the 18th of Sep- . tember, proceeded to Nort'h Carolina in October, and ou the 26th of November, 1886, submitted a report t o the Attorney.G.enera1 of his action in thepremises. While the matter has not beeu fully or finally adjusted, steps have beeu inaugurated by Mr. Yeates which, if he is permitted to complete them, should terminate, in my opinion, in a sat-isfactory adjustment of the award and of many of the irregularities and troubles connected therewith. By the act of Dfarch 3,1883 (22. Stat., 582), the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians was authorized to institute asnit in. the Court of Claims against the United States to determine the rights of the said band in or to moneys, stocks, and bonds held by the United States in trust for the Cherokee Indians, arising out of the sales of lands west of the Mississippi river, and also in certain other fund, commonly called the permanent annuity fund, to which suit the Cherokee Na-tion West was made a'party defendant. Judgment, however, was ren-dered against the claim of the Eastern band to share in the funds named in the act (20 C. Cls., p. 449), aud on appeal to the Snpreme ,Court of the United States the decree of the Court of Claims was, on the 1st of March, 1886, affirmed. By this decision of the Snpreme Court the status of these Indians was defined, hut their condition thereby became the more unsettled. In its decision the Supreme Court held that-- The Cherokees in Nosth Carolina dissolved their connection with the CherokeeNa-tion when they refumd to accompany the body of it on its removal, and have had no .aepsrate political organisstion since. Though fostered and encouraged, they have not been recognized by the United States aa a nation in whole or in pert, and, as now o$ganized, are not the aucceasor of any organization recognized by any treaty or law of the United States.. They ceased to be Dart of the Cherokee Nation, and henoeforth they became oiti-zsna of, and were subject to the laws of, €he State in which they resided. If Indians ~ n t h aSt t ate (North Carolina), or i n m y o ther State eaat of the Miasissippi, wiah to en"iov. th e benefits of the common ~-r o p-e r t.vof th e Cherokee Nation, in whatever form it m y exist, they must, as held by the Court of Claims, comply with the oonstitu-tion and laws of the Cherokee Nation, and be readmitted to citizenship, aa there yrhvided. They cannot live out af its temitary, evade the obligations and burdens .of oitisenaQ, ana at the same time enjoy the benefitsof the fnndaandoommon prop- .erty of the Nstion. (U. S. Reports, 117, p.288.') These Indians are already canvassing among themselves aa to the' feasibility of removing to the Nation West,fand as to the best means for them to adopt to enter upon a settled life. If they had the means at hand to effect their own removal, and a positive, well-defined assur- |
