OCR Text |
Show 78 REPORT OF' THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Unifid States for protection in their property and improvements until some plan of settlement of their rights could be adopted. The Secretary of the Interior rendered a decision August 21,1888, in the case of Joln~K esterson wllich fixed the status of all such claimants whose claims had been or might thereafter be rejected by the Cherokee authorities as intruders in the na,tion and subject to removal as such under article 27 of the treaty of 1866 (14 Stats., 806). He decided, how-ever, that intrnders of this class lnust be dealt with in the light of the facts in each case; that having gone there in apparent good faith upon the invitation of the nation, and having made valuable iml>rovements while suflered or permittcd to remain, the Department would not cause or suffer their removal to be made in such sum~narya nd sudden illail-ner :IS to work great harm and loss to their property unnecessary hardship personally to the~nselves and their families; that they were entit,lcd to the protection of the Government of the United States in a proper may as its citizens, since they had not been admitted to citizen-in the Clierolree Nation nor were under its jurisdiction; that this pro-tection xras peculiarly necessary in snch ca8es; and that they were entitled to a reasonable time and opportnnity, in view of all tlie circnm-stances of their long residence a11d labor in the nation, to gather their growing crops and to dispose of their property or remove it as might be.most suitable to its character. The ageut having been instructed in office letter of August 24, 1888, in aeoordancc with this decision, he issued notices to a large number of inlauders of the class desoribed, directing them to dispose of their property in the nation not of a movable character and to remove their other property and themselves and their families, within six months. The ldme within which the removals mere to take place was extended indefinitely by this oEce, with the approval of the Department, in March 1889, on account of statements received here that recognizedcitizens of the Cherokee Nation, to whom alone the intruders could sell their impn~vementsr,e fused to buy them, saying they must be abandoned anyway in six mouths and then they could be occupied without cost. Thns the matter stood at the time of the ratifioation by Congress of the agreement entered into December 19, 1891, betweon David H. Jerome, Alfred M. Wilson, and Warren G. Sayre, comrnissionerfi on the part of the United States, and Elias C. Boudinot, Joseph A. Scales, George Downing, Roach Young, Tbolnas Smith, William Triplett, and Joseph Smallwood, co~nmissioners on the part of the Cherokee Nation, lookiiig to the sale to the United Btates of the tract of country known as tht? L'Oherokee Outlet." The tirst paragraph of article2 of theagree-ment, which article corltains the stipulated co~~sidcratiofnosr the cession provialed for in article 1, is as follows, viz: Firs?;. That all persons nom resident, or who may hereafter become residents, in the Cherokee Nation, and who are not reoognised en citizensof the Cherokee Nation by the oonstitnted authorities thereof, and who are not in the emplo~ment of tho CheroL:ee Nation, or in the employment of citizens of the Cherokee Nation, in oon- |