OCR Text |
Show * , 34 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIR8. This theory, however, was overruled by the Supreme Court in The : United States v. Ritchie, in which the court.expressed the opinion that . , i t is impo~sibleto deny that under the constitution and laws of Mexico: 8 , no distinction wan made as to the rights of citizenship, and the privi-leges belongi~ig thereto, between the Indian and tlie European or Spanish blood. That is, that the term Indians, when used without qualification in the oonstitutiou and laws of Mexico, applied not to any faction, or tribe, or class of Indians, but to the whole lndian race. Opinion of the House of Representatives.-Besides this we hark against the opinions of the respective jutlges of the courts of New Mexico the opinion of the Eouse of fZepresentatives of the United Stated, which, in adopting the report of its con~mittee* in the contested-election case of Lane v. ~ a i l e ~ odsec, i ded that the Pueblo It~dians\r ere not citizens of the United States and not entitled to vote; also the opinion of Oou-gress as expressed by its appropriations from year to year,for a number. of years, providing for the salary of a United States Indian agent? and for the support and civilization of the Pueblo Indians.$ I . Pueblo Indians are bodies politic.--By an act of the legislature of New ~ e x i c(oco mpiled laws of ~ e Mwexi co, 1865, page 470) the pueblo indians were created and constituted bodies politic and ' corporate, and given . . names by which they are known in the law and by which they and their successors should have- Perpetual suocession; sue and be sued, plead sod he impieaaed, bring and de- . . fond in any court of law or equitp all such actions, pleas: ant1 matters whatsoever 3 . proper ta recover, prateot, reclsim, demand, or assert the right of auch inhabitants or . any individual thereof, to my lands, tenements, or hereditaments, passessfld, ooou-pied, oraiaimed oantraq to law, by any person whatsoever, and to bring end defend . . all such aotions, and to resist any eocrosohnlent, olaim, or trespsss made upon snoh lands, tenements, orhereditaments, belonging to said inbabitauta or to any individual. Like the individual members of the wild tribes, the Pueblo Indian has no civil status in the eyes of the law. His iudi+iduility is merged in the pueblo of which he is a member and he has become a part and parcel of that unit. Whatever civil rights he may havesuperior to those of the wild Indian are only, such as his pueblo as a corporation 1 can under law enforce. He has no political rights not enjoyed by the wild Indian, except the right to vote at "elections for overseer of ditches, to which they Ueloag, and in the elections proper to. their own pueblos, to eleht their officers according to their ancient customs." (Com. Laws of New Mexico, 1865, 448.) This latter right declared to him by the law above quoted is one which he had before the law passed, and one of which theTerritory of New Mexico had no right to deprive him. It is a right to participate iu the government of his pueblo. 'No. Pal, Thirty-third Congress, first aession, House Journal, February 24, 1854, psge 455. t See Indian appropriation acts from 1874 to the present time. t S?e 25 Stats., 232 and 997' 26 Stats., 353 aud 1006; and h d i h rappropriatiin acts from year to yesr appssring in the Statutes at Lsrge. |