OCR Text |
Show LXXXII REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. bounded on the north by the State of Kansaa, on the east by the States of Arkansas and Missouri, on the south by the State of Texas, and on the west and north by the Territory of Oklahoma?' In other words, all that poltion of the old Indian Territory occupied by the five civilized tribes and by the several tribes under the jurisdiction of the Quapaw Agency, now compose the Indiau Territory. The said act, in sections 29 et sep., proceeds to limit the jurisdiction of the United States court iu the Indian Territo~ye stablished by the act of March 1, 1889 (?5 Stats., 783), to the Indian Territory as above defined, and to enlarge the authority conferred on that court by the said act, giving it jurisdictiou within the limits of the said Indian Ter-ritory over all civil cases therein, except those over which the tribal courts bare exclusive jurisdiction. The Indiau Territory is divided into three judicial divisions, and the court will be held for the first division, consisting of the country oc-copied by the Indian tribes in the Quapaw Agency, the Oherokee couu-try east of ninety-six degrees of longitude aud the Creek country, at Muscogee, in the Creek Nation; for the secoud division, consisting of the Choctaw couutry, at South McAlester, in the Choctaw Nation; and for the third division, consisting of the Chiokasam and Seminole couu-tries, at Ardmore, in the Chicasaw Nation. The court is given probate jurisdiction, and certain of the general statutes of the State of Arkansas are extended over and put iu force in the Indiau Territory. I t is authorized to appoint not more than three commissioners for each judicial di~isiou,w ho "shall be ex otficio notaries public and shall have the power to solemnize marriages;" they shall also exercise all the powers conferred by the lams of Arkansas upon justices of the peace withiu their districts." Except as otherwise provided in the lam, uppeals aud writs of error may be taken and prosecuted from the decisions of this court to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the salue manner aud under the same regulations as fro~uth e circuit courts of the United States. Much good is expected to result from the enlarged jurisdiction of the conrt, and es~eciallyfr om that provision of the law which gives the judge of the L'United States court in the Indiau Territory the same power to extradite persons who have taken refuge in the Indian Terri-tory, charged .with crimes in the States or other Territories of the United States, that may be now exercised by the governor of Arkansas in that State." This power properly exercised will, it is expeeted, have the effect to purge the Territory to a great extent of the eriminal ele-ment that for years is said to have founcl an asylum there, where pur-suit and punishluent seldom, if at all, found its way, to which element much of the introduction of whisky and themoral degradation of many of the Iudians is due. The Indiau Territory is now provided with a judicial system which reaches in its jorisdiction every luanner of controversy that may arise, |