OCR Text |
Show I made a total of $188,922.58, which, together with $2,300 additional for costs of suits, etc.-a grand total of $191,222.5&the court decreed should be paid by the Secretary of the Interior (out of the moneys reserved by and in the custody of the United States for that purpose) to the individual Shawnees, per capita, who would have been entitled to the same if the unconstitutional restrictions and discrimination had not existed in the distribution of the said fund of $6,640,000 lo the exclusion of t,he Shawnees. INTRUDERS IN THE CHEROKEE NATIOX. The Indian appropriation act of March 2,1895 (28 Stats., 902), con. taius a provision in regard to the removal of intruders from the ~herokee country, as follows: The Seeretarv of the Interior is herehv mthorized and directed to susDentl sotion undvr tlre provisions of rho ar t of Congress roved 3InrrL third, eighter~bh umlrrd and ~iinets-tht.ua(2 7 Jtnta., t i l l ) , r a r i.f s i-n ~th e nmeemeot with the CherokuoSat:ut> of ~ e o emi enr i neteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, as to the actual removal from the Cherokee country of persons designated by the authorities as intruders, until the appraisal of the value of the improvements of such persons shall have been completed m d approved by the Secretary of the Interior and submitted by him to Congress and the removal of such intruders shall not be made earlier than Jan-uary first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six: Provided, That whenever any intruder shall have been paid or tendered the appraised value of his improvements, if he does got immediately surrender posseasion of the same to the authorities of the Cherokee Nation he shall pay rent therefor at the rate usual in-the country, but this provision uhall not he construed to extend the time for the removal of intruders ilosording to the foregoing agreement beyond the first day of Jannary, eighteen hundred and ninety-six. As stated in my last report, the work of appraising improvements of intruders in the Cherokee Nation was suspended under a telegram from the Department dated December ,22, 1893, for lack of fuuds to pay the fwther expenses of the appraisers. Congress having in the act of August 15,1894, appropriated $4,996 for continuing the appraisal of intruders' improvements, the apprrcisers, Messrs. Joshua Hutchius, Peter H. Pernot, and Olem V. Rogers, in accordance with instructions oontained in letters from this office dated October 11, 1894, met at Vinita, Ind. T., October 22, and resumed their labors. They completed the work and submitted their final report to this office on March 16,1895. Accompanying their report was the testi-mony taken in the claims whichthey had examined and two ~er ieosf apecial reports, 386 in rill, each report (except No. 316) relating to a separate claim. The fist series related to the improvements of persons alleged to be intruders in the nation, who claimed citizenship therein by blood, and embraced reports numbered from 1 to 316, inclusive. The second series related to improvements of persons of African descent a,Ueged to be intruders, who claimed rights in the nation under the ninth article of the Cherokee treaty of 1866 (14 Stats., 799), and embraced reports, numbered from 1 to 70. |