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Show - 7 LXXlV REPORT OF THE COXMISSIONXR OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. I lands has oonsequently increased, and since the Gooerument has in-angurated the system of allotment to Iudians of lands in se\.eralty, many pe r s a~~clsa iming to be mixed bloods have urged t h i ~bu reau to enroll them as members of Indian tribes. The subject has thus become _ one of decided importance, each application requiring careful investiga-i tion and con side ratio^^. A striking illustration of the great pecuniary interests i~volvedin 1 6'0mc of these applicatio~isi s furnished by the claims of a number of families to citizel~shii~n the Osage Nation, Oklahoma Territory. If a11 the securities and cretlits of the Osages were converted into cash, and,d istributed eqnally to the ~nc~nbeorfs the tribe, each man, woman, and child would receive over $5,000; and if the tribal lands should be allotted to them in severalt)-, each woul~ls ecnra over300 acres. Hence claimauts to citizenship would obtain, if successfi~l, wllat is considered by many as fortunes. Some of the applicants for tribal rigl~tsh ave but the slightest, trace, if any, of Indian blood; and, in some iustances, they have lired amoug l and afliliated exclusirel~v ith white people. Intleed, a.pplicationsh ave beeu made to this office for participation in tribsl benefits by United States citizeus n~hoscs ole title thereto rested upon their claim of har-iug nborigiual blood in their reins b j descent from Powhatan, through Pocahontas. nThile, in some cases the consent of the tribe is readily obtained, in others they strongly protest, agniust the admission of such claimauts. Attorney-General Onsl~ingi,n opiniou rendered July 5, 185G (7 Opiu-ions, 746), held that half-breed Indiaus were to be treated as Indiaus :, in all respects, so long as they reta,ined their tribal relations; that - . when the questiou of mixetl blood arose there was no intrinsic precis-iop in the cxpressio~l ':a white man," and he referred to the fact that there mere men of inrlobitable citizenship in various parts of the COUII-try who had Indian blood in their veins. He concluded that the iuco-pacity of race attached to an Indian, as snch, may and must be sus-ceptible of beiug determined, by intermarriage with persons of the domiuant race, but declined to lsy down a rnle as to the lleriod or stage of desccut at which this occurs. I t was subsequently decided, in the case of ex parte Eeynolds (5 Dillons Circuit Court Reports), which was upou a writ of habeas cor-pus applied for by Reyuolds who had been committed for a murder in the lu~lianco untry, that whether an intliridual of partial Indian descent is independent of jurisdiction of our courts as an India11 or is ameuablo to it as a snbject of the national or State government, is to be dcter-mined (if the question depends on race, not on residence) not upou the quantum of Indian blood, hut upon the coudition of his father, under the rille of the ciril law partus sepuiler patrenh, which governs in this class of cases. Tl~e court quotes in this case from Tattel, in his Law of Natio~~psa,g e 103, as follows: '(By the lam of nature alone cliildren |